Phantom Theories
by Chaos Dragon
Summary: My version of random oneshot and not so oneshot type drabbles. Formerly 'Chaos Theories'.
1. Laws of Stupidity

Laws of Stupidity

I'm not stupid.

Really, I'm not. I have an IQ as high as my sister's. A shorter attention span, sure. But I'm not stupid. I know it already.

See, everyone calls me clueless. My friends. My family. Even people I barely know.

They think I can't see it. They think I don't know it.

But I do.

I know she likes me.

God. That sounds so juvenile. But I can't say that she loves me. I don't know it, and I can't pretend to see into her heart.

But I know how I feel.

I know I like her.

No.

I know that I love her.

I know I do. I think I always have, even from when we were kids. I'm only seventeen. We all are, but we're not kids anymore. We haven't been kids in years.

Kids don't have the safety of the world resting on their shoulders. Kids don't have to choose the greater good over a single life.

My life.

If I live to see eighteen, I'll be lucky. I already know that my days are numbered. It's just a matter of time until some ghost comes along and beats me.

Kills me.

Or tries to kill her.

I'll die before I'll let that happen.

See, I'm not stupid. I already know.

X


	2. Fading

Fading

I'm fading. Fast. Too fast to see more than a flash of light before it bleeds into nothingness.

But I can hear. I can still hear.

_The wail of sirens._

_The screams dying as we lurch into a desperate rush for help._

"_BP's dropping; he's going in to shock._

Shock. I passed that long before they came, long before my blood stained the ground around me, the hands of my friends a bright, angry red.

I'm fading.

I can hear them. Telling me to hold on, not to leave. To fight just a little longer. But I'm tired. So very tired. I don't want to fight anymore; it hurts too much.

The jounce as they rush me, blind and not deaf, into the bustle of the emergency room. I want to scream, and I have no voice. And she's there again, calling to me, screaming my name.

"_Don't, don't leave."_

I'm fading.

The beeps, the harsh orders. The prick of a needle to the back of my hand. The sharper stab in my side and sudden release; a pressure in my chest that I didn't know was there beyond the rest of the pain.

Slick flow of blood out of me and I know it's too late; a long harsh tone fills the air over them. I know that I'm going to learn how the other half lives. What it's like to be out from under the shadow of a ghost.

I'm fading.


	3. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 1

A Series of Unfortunate Events: I: Constellation

The first time he tried to kiss Sam was right after his seventeenth birthday party. School had been out for a little more than two weeks, and they were seniors. Technically. They had enjoyed being able to label themselves the top dogs for the last ten days, as the seniors prepared for graduation and were generally too busy to care what the juniors of Casper High did or said.

Besides. They'd done that exact same thing themselves.

It was after gifts. After cake and ice cream. After what Sam called, mostly joking but not quite, the ritual roasting of meat products. After he managed to slip away from the overloud party leaving his parents dancing to old eighties music and entertaining the many relatives who'd made their way to Amity Park for the celebration, and the handful of friends he'd picked up with Sam and Tucker.

He told her he wanted to talk to her about one of his gifts; a telescope that he'd gotten from his Great Uncle Bennie. That he wanted her to point out constellations. Truth was, the only starts he wanted to see were the ones he planned on putting in her eyes. Just as long as he didn't lose his nerve.

By the end of the night Danny could recite every constellation in sight. Scorpio, Orion, Andromeda. The Dippers, big and little; Ursa Major and Minor.

He could point out the Milky Way, talk till his eyes sparkled and his voice danced around the thought of flying through space, dancing among the stars.

By the end of the night, the only constellation he couldn't name was the one that placed his lips firmly on hers.


	4. Prepare for Landing

Prepare for Landing

_Goth 1, Clueless 1 has landed._

The slip of paper dangles from a wad of gum on the inside of her locker door. It isn't signed, and Sam isn't quite sure what to make of it. Certainly, it's from Danny. Not even Tucker would be cruel enough to tease her this way, even if he lived for pressing her buttons in a million (and more) others.

She stands there, staring it for who knows how long, oblivious to the fact that the shuffle of oppressed teens fades around her as they escape, school now a distant torment in their minds. At least until morning. Her hand almost shakes as she lifts it and pulls the paper away, staring at it, unblinking.

And then she turns, and she is met with soft lips against her own, the slightest brush of a kiss as she stares startled into two bright, icy blue eyes. A wide smile that is a little smug, almost condescending, but self depreciating at the same time.

"So did I hit the runway?" His eyes flicker as he adds, "Or did I miss completely and become flaming debris miles away?"

The smile begins to fade at her lack of response until he is rubbing the back of his neck, shuffling his feet as she stands still and silent. Sam blinks. And then she finds her voice as her hands wind into the cotton of his shirt, pulling him closer as his eyes widen, equally startled and relived.

She smiles and cocks an eyebrow. "You hit the runway fine, but I think your technique needs a little work."

She takes a great deal of pleasure in the practice.


	5. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 2

A Series of Unfortunate Events: II: Timing

The second time Danny tried to kiss Sam on the Fourth of July, in the park, during the annual Fenton Family Fourth Picnic, more than a month after he turned seventeen. The third time was three weeks after that. The fourth was the day after school started again, and they were officially seniors.

He figured it was his luck that every time he tried to kiss everything would blow up in his face. But that didn't stop him.

September third rolled around and he still hadn't kissed her. Danny was fairly sure that, by now, Sam had realized that every time he got close enough that their breath mingled, that they could practically taste each other, he was trying to kiss her. He also was sure that she was very aware of each and every time he tried that something happened, backfired. He was also sure that, despite the fact that it hadn't happened just quite yet, Sam _wanted_ him to kiss her.

They all went to the Nasty Burger after school and had eaten, chilled, complained about unfair pop quizzes that were going to bring Tucker's and Danny's averages down. Sam only smiled and arched one of her dark brows. Tucker left, and Danny offered to walk her home. Maybe three steps past the doors of the Nasty Burger he made his move, managed to get close enough that his lips were barely touching hers, and she was trembling beneath his hands as he held her close.

And then both of their mouths were frozen as his ghost sense went off.

It was a short battle. It wasn't even a battle. He wiped the floor with Skulker, screeched imprecations at his lack of manners, bad timing, horrible threats, and the fact he would never be a pelt for Skulker's bed. And then he landed as Danny Phantom, maybe a few inches in front of Sam, and tugged her into his arms, kissing her surely, firmly, thrilling at the way she leaned into him, participating willfully and eagerly. He felt the familiar shiver of letting his ghost half go and proceeded to enjoy her as a human, not even noticing the crowd of two that had gathered behind them.

But he noticed the gasps. And he noticed Sam's suddenly wide eyes as she looked over his shoulder moments before he turned, one hand cocked into a fist, ready to let ectoenergy flare if it was a ghost.

Oh, how he wished it was a ghost. Instead, he found his parents.


	6. Lemon Sherbet

Lemon Sherbet

He was winded and he hadn't even made it to the park. Damn the luck that people were mobbing the area for the Third Annual Ghost Festival. Danny rolled his eyes as he saw Sam's ponytail bobbing in front of him, and heard Tucker's muttered curses behind him as the boy wheezed along.

There. A break in the crowd that led to a dark place beneath a table. Danny dove, light flashed, and Danny Phantom shot up through the table to hover well above the crowded street, eyes searching for whatever ghost had set off his ghost sense this time.

To the left. Nothing.

To the right. Nothing.

In front, behind, above, below. Still no…

Wait. There. In the tree behind his parents' ectogun exhibit. Was that? It was, and Danny forced himself not to laugh, no matter how badly he wanted to. A ghost was floating there, yes. In a long garishly colored robe and a matching pointed hat crowning long white-gray hair. He had a beard that reached nearly to his waist, and pointed slippers dangled from beneath the robe.

Danny flew closer, not sure whether he would even need to throw the first punch. "Who are you?" he asked tentatively.

The ghost turned and tiny glasses winked at Danny in the fading light. "My name is Albus Dumbledore." He held a hand out to show several small yellow candies. "Lemon sherbet?"

Danny could only raise an eyebrow.


	7. She Said No: Sam

She Said No: Sam

She'd been dating Alex for three weeks. Three whole weeks that had been nice. But that was all. In fact, nice was about the only thing Sam could attribute to her relationship with her boyfriend. It was nice. And possibly a distraction. He was nothing like Danny, and it was something she was beginning to think she'd done on purpose, even with her boyfriend snuggled against her side as he was now.

He was only an inch taller than she, 5'7" compared to Danny's almost towering 6'2", and he had brown eyes, and brown hair. All around average, nothing compared to the almost mysterious vibes that Danny could channel when he was in the mood. And he was larger. Not heavy, per say, but he had bulky muscle where Danny was nothing but lean whipcord over bone.

Alex was… He wasn't Danny. Dry humor, already in his second year of college. So much more serious. And much more demanding than she wanted, Sam realized as she felt his hands graze down her stomach to her thigh, fingers starting to slip underneath the hem of her skirt as Alex leaned up and kissed her.

"Alex," she managed before he cut her off, and Sam was surprised to find herself suddenly beneath him on the couch in his apartment. "Alex, stop."

She pushed him back and started to sit up, and very nearly screamed when he pushed her back down. "Come on, Sammy. You'll like it. I promise."

She narrowed her eyes as he called her Sammy, a name that not even Danny used with impunity, and struggled to sit up again, this time using more force as she realized that Alex wasn't going to let her up without a fight. "Alex, I said no. I don't want to do this."

"Relax," he ordered, his voice suddenly sharp and hard as he pushed her back into the cushions of the couch.

"Stop!" But he didn't, and Sam winced as she heard the ripping sound of fabric and realized that he'd split her shirt almost down the center. She kicked out, aiming for his groin, but she only missed and caught him in the thigh, making him narrow his eyes as he raised her body up by her arms to bounce her back down, jarring her head and making her bite her lip.

"Fucking little bitch," he growled, and Sam spat at him, bloody saliva spattering his face as she popped out with a good right jab.

He hit her. Full across the side of the face, and Sam was knocked off the couch and to the floor, her head glancing off of the coffee table and making her see black for a moment. More than a moment, she realized as she blinked her eyes open and realized that she was back on the couch, and her boots were gone, her purple tights, too, and he'd shoved her skirt up as he tried frantically to work its zipper.

Her body refused to obey her as she told it to fight, to kick, punch, bite. Anything to keep this from happening. All she got was a faint whimper of sound that she turned into a pleading, "No." Another ripping sound and the skirt was gone. Sam did the only thing she could think of. She screamed.

And then Alex was gone, ripped away as Sam stared dazedly up. It was Danny, jeans already dotted with blood, fists clenched into Alex's shirt as he hefted the shorter man up, and eyes glowing a very, very angry green. He pulled Alex close, grinned ferally into his face.

"She said no."


	8. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 3

A Series of Unfortunate Events: III: Confession

They took it better than he'd expected. The questions flew, the explanations flew faster. He'd come out of it with his skin and ectoplasm both intact. He'd called Sam when it was over to tell her he was okay, they were almost cool with it. To tell her he was sorry the kiss was interrupted, though he never actually said that. No, they danced around it even though they both knew it had happened, that they'd enjoyed it.

Then he called Tucker, babbling, "It the biggest thing that's ever happened."

He heard Tucker gasp over the phone before asking, "Your parents found out?"

Danny only chuckled a little. "Yeah, but—"

"Dude, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, but—"

And the torrent of questions was never ending until Danny hung up the phone and sighed. Then he picked it back up and dialed another number that he'd known by heart since she'd gotten her cell phone. His heart thumped painfully in his chest when she answered, a mostly sleepy sound, her voice soft and fuzzy and warm. So warm that he could almost hear the smile as she said his name.

"Danny." It was all she said, and he smiled happily.

"Hey." Soft. Short and sweet and entirely unsophisticated.

There was silence for a little while as he listened to her breathe. And then her voice came softly from the phone. "Did you need something, Danny? Is something wrong?"

He smiled wryly up into the darkness from where he laid on his bed. "Actually, yeah." There was the rustle of blankets from across the phone, and Danny cradled it to his ear. "See, there's this girl, and I really, really like her. I kissed her today."

"And?" Sam asked, breathlessly.

"And I really want to kiss her again," he confessed quietly into the phone.

There was a low chuckle that made his entire body tense with anticipation. Then she all but purred, "Well, what are you waiting for?"

Sometimes it was very good to be half ghost.


	9. Perfect Fit

Perfect Fit

Danny Fenton was a big fan of perfect fits.

The way a large pepperoni pizza and a two-liter of soda was the perfect fit to fill his stomach during movie nights at Sam's house. The way that his mom always knew the perfect amount of peanut butter that went with the jelly. The way that his family went together, insanity and all, without causing any actual meltdowns. The way that Tucker always managed to find a way for four PDA's to be tucked inside his pants pockets and still have room leftover for his cell.

The way that Sam Manson fit underneath his arm, tucked right up against him when he walked her home after their first date.

The way that, when he rested his forehead against hers, he could look right into her eyes and still kiss her.

The way that her lips seemed made to compliment his.

The picture on the wall of their den. Himself, tall and smiling. Her, leaning against him with a laugh lining her face. And the three children that were surrounding them; a boy with his father's eyes, and two girls, mirror images, with their mother's smile.

Yeah. That was the most perfect fit of all.


	10. She Said No: Danny

She Said No: Danny

Fury. It wasn't something new, he'd felt it each time Sam dated someone but him. Impotent fury at best. He'd never made a move on her. Never done anything to jeopardize the friendship, placing that above his own wants and desires. But fury, white hot, blinding green, blood red. He could taste it on the back of his tongue as he slammed Alex down on the floor, a satisfying crunch echoing as he hit.

But now his eyes were glued on Sam, dazed, shaken, very nearly naked with a bruise forming on her face and blood running through her hair. "Sam? Are you okay?" he asked as he knelt down in front of her, tugging the throw from the back of the couch and trying to wrap her in it. She could only blink at him for the longest moment, and then her eyes widened in fright.

A glance back and he saw Alex was getting up off of the ground. "Call the police, Sam," he murmured before pushing himself back up and turning to the college student.

"Come to rescue your little girlfriend?" Alex spat out as he wiped at his bleeding nose. Then his face twisted into disgust and he said, "I always knew she was a slut."

It didn't take much more than that to set Danny off. Coupled with the name calling, which he knew was untrue, and the evidence that he'd already seen that Sam had nearly been raped… It went badly for Alex. Danny knew that he'd hurt the other man badly, very badly. It had to be very badly considering the blood on the floor, the way his knuckles split and blended his blood with the rest as he hit Alex.

It had to be because when he was finally dragged off of him, Alex was unconscious on the floor, unmoving and silent.

And then Danny was fighting against half a dozen people, trying to break free to find Sam, his Sam. Ignoring the questions about what happened—he couldn't explain anyway. Part of it was simple. Alex had tried to rape Sam, Danny had stopped him. Nearly killed him. _How did you know?_ The question he wanted to avoid. Had to avoid, and how he'd gotten in.

Because it would be crazy to tell them he just knew. That sometimes, not often, he just knew what was going on with her, knew when she was happy, or sad, or worried. Or terrified. Knew that she was terrified, that she was nearly beyond fear, and that he'd flown across town to protect her from whatever was wrong. A psychic connection, Officer, that's it.

He had one glimpse of Sam, eyes closed as she was being loaded into the back of an ambulance, nearly as pale as the white sheet they'd stretched across her.

Another glimpse of Alex, rushed into another one and it screamed away.

And then he felt cold metal as it snicked around his wrists.

"You're under arrest."


	11. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 4

A Series of Unfortunate Events: IV: All the King's Men

"You should have joined with me, little badger. We could have ruled the world, side by side. Father and son."

Danny dodged a stray ectoblast and shot one of his own at Vlad, blithely avoiding a tree before he slammed into it but not quiet managing to skip through the hundreds of thousands of red and gold and orange leaves that decorated his home at the beginning of November. A thought and he was intangible, then flying up and soaring high over Amity Park, hiding in plain sight as he looked down to see where Vlad was.

Then a stooping dive as he cried, "You aren't my father!" before plowing in to the older halfa.

But before he could plow into the ground Vlad grabbed him, flipping him around in the air with a cunning Danny hadn't known he had, and he lost his breath in a long whoosh as he plowed into something solid behind him. "Not in any conventional sense, Daniel, but I'm close enough," Vlad hissed as two hands grabbed Danny by the shoulders.

He twisted away, trying to fly from the thing he feared most in the world: himself.

"Hello, Danny."

Rich, dark, melodious and the most evil sound Danny had ever heard in all of his seventeen and a half years.

He gasped, going even more pale than he already was. "You're in the thermos at Clockwork's!"

Dan smiled, rubbed a hand along his jaw. "Clockwork? Hmm. Clockwork. Oh, yes. I remember now." He floated a little closer, and Danny scrambled back in the air. "Are you familiar with nursery rhymes, Danny-boy? Try this one on for size."

And then Dan was gone, and cold breathe misted on the back of Danny's neck as he stared at Vlad, still horrified that the other halfa would be foolish enough to let his worst nightmare go free. Next to his ear Dan whispered in a low rumble, "All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Clockwork together again." A pause as Danny closed his eyes, preparing to die, knowing he had no hope of fighting back against both of them.

One maybe, but now he was as good as dead.

"I'll come for you, Danny. You and your little family. With an entire realm at my back, and I will destroy you."

Then Danny was pushed away, darting as far away from himself and Vlad as he could get. He ignored the agonized screams from behind him, knowing that Dan was going after Vlad, and knowing that he was powerless to stop it. Knowing that even if he could, he wouldn't even try. No, all Danny could think about was time. Precious little of it.

Dan would roll through the Ghost Zone without anything to stop him. And then he would come to Amity Park.

And that is where Danny would try.


	12. Magic Trick

Magic Trick

Metal jiggled between them, and she groaned irritably. "Explain to me again why you thought it would be a good idea to handcuff yourself to me?"

A delicate black brow arched and jade green eyes stared at Sam. "Because it's a magic trick. I never thought the key wouldn't work and I'd be stuck with a Goth geek like you until my Papa could bring the spare."

Sam rolled her eyes.

"And you still didn't answer my question."

"Not going to." Sam's voice was colder than the arctic at full blizzard.

Paulina sniffed. "Just admit that you like him."

Sam closed her eyes. "Will it make you stop trying to put pink lipstick on me?"

"Maybe." Paulina sighed at Sam's glare. "Alright, fine. You admit it, I'll stop."

"Fine," Sam drawled.

"So, yes?"

"Yes." There was silence and Sam cracked her eyes to see Paulina waiting expectantly. "What? Do I have to spell it out for you? Yes. I like him."

Paulina squealed and Sam knew the days of Danny remaining clueless were numbered.

X

---

**Alternatively, you can make it crackfic by substituting the following for the last line:**

**_Paulina squealed. "I always knew you were a Justin Timberlake fan!"_**

**Yeah. Sam would kill me, and my sensibility to remaining true to the original thought wouldn't let me. So the note. Grin.**


	13. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 5

A Series of Unfortunate Events: V: Can't Stop Me Now

"So he's you."

"Yeah. He's me."

"You can't, Danny."

"I beat him before." He clenched his jaw against the near admission that it had been luck. Mostly.

"Danny, we're your parents. Lying isn't going to work. You can't."

He closed his eyes. "You can't stop me."


	14. Keeping Score

Keeping Score

Danny: 67

Sam: 7

Tucker: 12 3

"Okay. Danny got first place. He got sixty-seven."

"But I don't count because I have an unfair advantage. So give me the scoresheet so I can read them off."

"Right, Sam. No cheating."

"Fine. But it won't change the results."

"Okay, Sam got seven. Pretty good. One a day."

"It would have been more if _someone_ hadn't butted in. Right, Danny?"

"I was just trying to help. Anyway. Tucker got three. So Sam wins."

"Hey! Wait! I caught twelve!"

"You also dropped the thermos and nine got away."

"Yes! I win! A week of you two doing whatever I say! I so rule."

"Great…You know, you didn't have to cheat to get Danny to obey you."

"…"

"Tucker. I am going to kill you."

"Wait a minute, Danny. I have a better idea."

"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"

"Tuck. Go to Danny's house and ask Jazz to psychoanalyze you. I don't want to see you for at least three hours."

"Hehe. Good one, Sam. He looked terrified."

"Yeah. He did didn't he?...Not so fast, Ghost Boy. I've got something for you to do, too."

"…"

"Lose the hazmat."


	15. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 6

A Series of Unfortunate Events: VI: Believe

"You'll be back, right?"

"Yeah. I'll be back." Danny smiled as he remembered the last time he'd said that. Fourteen years old and wondering if he'd survive going up against the most powerful ghost in existence.

At least until _he_ grew up.

He could see it in Tucker's eyes, the belief in Danny's words. He'd come back enough, from insurmountable odds, that his friend would believe. But Jazz… She doubted. And he needed to take that doubt away.

"Jazz, really. This isn't a goodbye." He forced himself to chuckle. "This is a 'keep Mom and Dad out of the way' thing."

The shadows of her face shifted. Rose a little.

"I can't focus on beating him is I have to worry about them." Careful with his words, terrified he'd slip and she'd see through the carefully constructed sentences.

But there. the smile. The light in her green eyes. _Belief._ She believed.


	16. Innuendo

Innuendo

Sam smiled. Her heart was racing, her skin was slick with the sheen of sweat from her exertions. Her legs were still trembling, and she couldn't catch her breath.

"I love watching you do that."

"Danny!" She jerked upright, cheeks flushing brilliant red. "You _watched_ me?"

He nodded, cheeks pink as he looked down at her from where he floated. She smirked a little when he dropped to the ground as Fenton and rubbed the back of his neck with one calloused hand. "You look amazing when you do that."

"Do you want to do it with me?" Flippant, self-assured. Amused.

"Me? With you? Mm… no." He flushed more, his cheeks now crimson. "No, I don't think so."

"I won't tell anyone, Danny." She smiled and reached a hand out to him. "You can just help me, okay?"

He shot her a bemused smile and shrugged. "Okay, but I've never done this before."

"Everyone has a first time."

There was silence between them for moments as Sam laid back, beckoning him down to her. "Like this," she said quietly, moving his hands so that they held her just so. A faint groan as something told her it hurt, and Danny pulled back suddenly.

"It's okay. I'm just a little sore from last time."

"I don't want to hurt you," he replied as he settled next to her again.

"Relax, Danny," Sam said as she twisted her body again.

"It's just yoga."


	17. She Said No: Maddie

She Said No: Maddie

It really wasn't fair. Not in the least. After everything he had done for so many, careless of his own safety… And now to be carted off, head hanging, hands twisted behind his back and shackled. And all for taking care of yet one more person.

Not just a person, Maddie acknowledged quietly as she sat silently in the police station, waiting for the paperwork to be processed so that she could take Danny home. At the very least, he hadn't been listed as a flight risk, a label that made Maddie Fenton smirk and fight hard against the laughter that wanted to roll out.

Danny Fenton, not a flight risk.

A smile quirked her lips. Fenton, perhaps not. But Danny _Phantom_ was a completely different story.

Not that she would tell them, or anyone. Not even Danny himself.

"Mom." The soft voice broke her from her reverie, and Maddie stood, wrapping her arms around Danny as he stood there, head down, eyes shadowed. He held her for a moment and pulled away. "Is she okay?"

"She is, Danny. She's fine. Because of you."

He nodded once, sharply.

"We'll get a good lawyer, Danny."

Still silence as he followed her out to Jazz's car; Maddie's concession to the gravity of the situation. After all, it wasn't every day that your son was charged with attempted murder.


	18. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 7

A Series of Unfortunate Events: VII: It Sounds Like Goodbye

He found her in his room, curled on his bed with her back to the door. He did the only thing he could think of. He crawled into the bed behind her and held her close.

"Sam, I—"

"Don't." Her voice was muffled as she twisted in his arms to face him. "Don't say it. Anything you say will sound like goodbye."

She kissed him then, and he knew that she knew, knew that she was saying goodbye to him in the only way that wouldn't break her down. But maybe it was better this way. Instead of empty words, the memory of sweat slick skin. Instead of tearful whispers, the way she moved beneath him. Taste, touch. Sight and sound.

His name on her lips.

Her name in his heart.

And when it was done, and he knew her body as well as his own, no matter that it was again hidden from his eyes, only one thing was left to say before he slipped back through the door and moved toward his fate.

"Sam. I love you."

He could hear her crying as he leaned against the closed door.


	19. The Bet

The Bet

"Fifty bucks I can make Sam scream louder than you."

Danny arched a brow, then grinned. "You're on."

---

He'd gotten her good. Replacing her entire wardrobe with pastels and pink had been inspired, even if he still thought his shin needed a cast. But the look Danny had given him before slipping through the door of Sam's room worried him, and badly.

Especially since they'd been in there for nearly an hour without a sound.

And then he heard the first, a whisper of a giggle followed by a creak that made his jaw drop. If he didn't know better he'd say it sounded like bedsprings.

But Danny wouldn't… But no. There it was again, and a gasp, a sigh, and Tucker pressed his ear to the door not believing what he was hearing. He'd been pushing them at each other for years, and nothing had come of it. And then he made a bet with Danny and suddenly…

A deep chuckle. "Like that, huh?" And the throaty laugh that followed made Tucker scramble back from the door.

More creaking, and a definite moan that had to be Sam's, but he'd never heard her voice sound so breathy, so delicate. So turned on. And a whispered plea, "Just like that, Danny." Tucker's life ended as he knew it, and only spiraled further as the bed creaked again, and then again.

"Sam…" The husky voice trailing off on her name, to continue on a loud moan. "Feels so good, Sam."

Whimpers, Sam again, and Tucker's jaw dropped as the keening grew. He was going to lose this bet. Hell, he could already say he'd lost the bet if it came to sheer brass balls. Danny apparently had those down pat, especially since Sam was moaning his name loud enough for Tucker to wonder if the neighbors heard her.

"Harder, Danny." The order gasped as the springs creaked more rapidly, and the low murmur of a reply as she began to whimper, gasp, moan. Tucker could practically see the window cracking right before everything went silent in one ear splitting cry, mingled with a much lower triumph.

Resigned he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, counting out two twenties and a ten as he waited through the silence that followed. And then there was a snick as the lock was thrown back and the door whispered open to show Danny, a fine sheen of sweat across his shoulders and chest, a rakish grin on his face, and Sam. Behind him, leaning up against him, a sheet wrapped around her slim figure to show bare shoulders and a faint red mark at one collarbone, another higher up on her neck just under her jaw line.

"You were supposed to scare her into screaming," was all Tucker managed as Danny held his hand out.

Danny shrugged. "You never said _how_ I was supposed to make her scream."

"Danny," Sam said softly, sliding an arm around his waist and turning him to her so that she could press a devastating kiss to his mouth, tongue sliding along his lips before pulling back with a smile. "Come back to bed."

Danny shot Tucker a grin before the door closed, and Tucker blinked. He heard a creak and then turned on his heel, darting down the stairs and out of Sam's house without looking back.

---

"Yep. There he goes," Sam said as she laughed her way back to her bed, unwrapping the sheet from around her and picking up her shirt to tug it on over her strapless bra. She adjusted her skirt and shot Danny a wicked grin. "Think we fried his brain?"

Danny laughed as he tugged his jeans up and buttoned them. "And the Oscar goes to Sam Manson." He pulled his shirt over his head and chuckled some more. "You're really very good at that, Sam. For a few minutes I actually fell for it. And I was here."

She grinned as he sat down next to her.

"Thanks, though. Want a cut?" he asked, holding up the wad of cash. She shook her head. "You sure? You didn't have to do this."

"You know I'd do anything for you, Danny," she said archly and pressed a kiss to his cheek. She stood, moving to her desk and sitting down calmly. "Just let me know if you ever want to try it for real."

Danny's jaw dropped.


	20. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 8

A Series of Unfortunate Events: VIII: Sacrifice

The ground shook beneath her feet as they stood outside of Fenton Works. _He_ had come, and now Danny would go. No matter that he was saluting his family, Jazz and Tucker jauntily, she knew the truth.

And he knew.

He stopped in front of her. "Sam."

A smile. Teary, but a smile. "I know, Danny. I do, too."

The fleeting surprise on his face, gratitude. Regret. Then he kissed her, not caring who saw so long as for those few seconds he was safe in her arms. And then he was gone, streaking through the sky and she could almost laugh at Tucker as her Danny flew off to save the world.

"He kissed her!"

But Jazz… "He's not coming back, is he?"

The tears came then, and Sam closed her eyes. "He isn't planning on it."

She didn't open them again through the chaos. The yells, the screams, the flashes of bright green ectoenergy. The shaking of the ground beneath her feet. Not until she felt the air around her bend; shockwaves as he wailed.

Then she opened her eyes, just in time to see… Dan was gone, and so was Danny. Faded into green dust that danced away on the wind.

She screamed.


	21. Adrenaline

Adrenaline

It wasn't that he wanted to die though, technically, he wasn't sure that could even happen. He was already _half_ dead, and had been for nearly five years. He thought, sometimes, that maybe the half of him that had felt fear had died along with whatever it was that had crossed over and become his ghost half. True, he still was afraid of things, but nothing ever gave him the deep bone chilling, heart thrilling fear that he'd felt before the accident.

Not even telling Sam that he loved her.

Sometimes the thought would drive him insane, to where he would find himself walking up walls, upside down on his ceiling just to see things differently. Those were the nights that he would go ghost and flash up through his roof, soaring higher and higher until he hit the edge of the atmosphere, the world at his feet curving into the starry darkness.

And then he would go human.

The fall. It was terrifying. _Will I pass out before I can breathe again? Will my body burn away into my ghost as I push back into the atmosphere?_

Closer and closer to the earth, his stomach tingling, his body screaming with the long missed fear that raced through it like ice. _Will I crash into the ground this time? Will tonight be the night that I miss and break myself against the face of the earth?_

Closer, and closer.

Lights coming back first, a dull massed glow of cities, then towns. The beginnings of individual lights as they twinkle up at him. He'd fight to keep his eyes open against the wind that whistled past, arrow his body a little straighter to try and get more speed, knowing that every time he changed something he came closer to a mistake that could kill him.

_Is it suicide if I die?_

There, the ground, so close, and coming closer. He close, and then he would make the change, back to ghost, into intangibility, and fall through the crust until his powers kick in and he flies himself back to the surface. Then he'd stand there, body trembling and shaking, almost like it had the first time they'd made love.

It's a feeling that he can't forget, and fights so hard to remember. The surge of it in his veins as he toys with death.

One day, he'll make that mistake.

One day, he'll paint the ground bloody red.

But that day is not today.


	22. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 9

A Series of Unfortunate Events: IX: Those Who Knew Him

A slim girl in black, eyes red, face pale and blotchy. Hundreds of eyes on her, and she glared back defiantly.

"You're hypocrites."

Amethyst eyes skimmed rows upon rows of people behind his family, wanting to rail at them for coming to his memorial, for daring to think they could pretend to be his friends. Ignored in life, revered in death; a casualty of the battle that also destroyed Danny Phantom.

"You weren't his friends. Not when he was alive. And you aren't now that he's dead. You'll never be."

Her throat was tight with the effort not to cry, unshed tears thickening her voice. She found Tucker's eyes and willed the burning ache down.

"You didn't know him. You beat him down at every turn. Mocking him, ridiculing him. Making him feel like he wasn't good enough." A pause for breathe as she hitched in a sob. "You didn't know him," and her voice cracked. Cracked, but didn't break.

She wiped her eyes furiously, knowing she was losing the battle.

"_We_ knew him. And for those who knew him, he was a hero."

The battle was lost on all fronts, and Sam began to cry.


	23. She Said No: Tucker

She Said No: Tucker

"I want to kill him."

Tucker shivered to hear such hate in his best friend's voice. No matter that Danny was usually an easy going person, mostly even-tempered. A good guy. A hero. The events of the last two weeks gave Tucker firm knowledge that he never would have guessed on his own: Danny Fenton was capable of killing.

Sam had been back at school for three days. Just three days, and already things had changed. More than the headline of the pretty goth girl nearly getting raped, more than the byline that the loser wimp of Casper High had put Sam's attacker—boyfriend was no longer accurate—into the ICU for nearly a week. More than the fact that things like that just _don't_ happen in Amity Park, Illinois.

Everyone was on eggshells around Sam. Teachers, students. Hell, even Dash was treating her like she might break if he looked at her cross-eyed. But then, everyone had reason. She was jumpy. Touch just wasn't something she could take.

Not even Danny or Tucker.

"I hate him for doing this to her."

Tucker sighed. Somehow, it felt like the world liked to heap the badness of life down on the three of them. But Tucker could be grateful; his only issues, barring what had almost happened to Sam, were the fact that he was dateless, and the fact that Danny and Sam weren't dating each other.

And now the possibility of that seemed to be getting even more remote than before.

Tucker mentally smacked himself. Thinking like that… It was stupid. He needed to focus on his friends, try and help Sam, as much as she'd let him. Try and keep Danny from killing Alex. Even if Tucker didn't really want to.

But it'd just be so hard to get them together if Danny was in prison.

"I hate him, too, Danny." He clapped a hand to his friend's back. "And if no one else says it, thank you."

Blue eyes shot to Tucker's, surprised. "For what?"

He gave Danny a smile, crooked and half formed at best. "For saving her."

"Some savior I am."

Tucker shrugged at that. "He might have killed her." He got an angry growl in response. "Hey, Danny?"

"What?"

"How did you know?"

The question had been burning through Tucker for weeks. One minute he'd been chilling at the Nasty Burger with Danny, eating fries and arguing over some stupid comic book debate. And then he'd been gone. Winking out in plain sight and not giving a damn who saw.

The next thing Tucker knew he was getting a call that Danny had been arrested and charged with attempted murder, and Sam was in the hospital because Alex had attacked her, tried to rape her.

Not as informative as Tucker desired.

Now Danny sighed. "I just knew."

Tucker pressed. "But _how_?"

Very, very quietly, Danny finally admitted it. "Because I love her."

And Tucker smiled faintly. Maybe there was hope for them yet.


	24. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 10

A Series of Unfortunate Events: X: Blue

The minutes. Three minutes and six slim sticks. Pencil thin and face down next to her sink.

She'd been sick. So sick. And everyone assuming that it was because of Danny's death. But eleven weeks off nausea, of barely eating and sleeping between rounds of kneeling before a toilet…

Two minutes. Two minutes and a million questions. They'd only… Just the once. Her first time. His, too. And just once.

One minute.

One minute until she knew.

Time.

One by one she turned them, eyes closed, hands shaking. And then…

Blue.

Blue. Blue. Blue, blue and blue.

Apparently, once was enough.


	25. What Wasn't Fine

What Wasn't Fine

He'd never really thought about stopping by her house for a late night visit. There'd never been a problem before that made him even question the fact that six out of seven nights he found his way to her house after most people were long asleep. Never mind the fact that he knew he loved her, suspected he was more than half _in_ love with her.

Most nights he'd find her still awake. On her computer, or maybe reading a book with her headphones in so that she could enjoy some soothing background music. Some nights he would find her asleep, and more than once he'd gently moved her to her bed to save her an aching neck from falling asleep over her keyboard. Most visits they would talk, about homework, which he always needed help with, or anything that came to mind, because he loved the sound of her voice.

The rest he would sit silently soaking in her presence; content to just be with her.

But tonight… Tonight made Danny rethink the intelligence of dropping by unexpectedly when all good little halfa's should have been in bed and trying to sleep, or flying the friendly skies looking for the latest ghostly disturbance. Tonight Sam was buried beneath the sheet and blanket and even the thick comforter on her bed. Which was fine.

What wasn't fine were the breathy moans that came from beneath it.

What wasn't fine was the way the slender figure moved beneath the masses of linen, writhing and twisting in the most devastatingly erotic ways.

What wasn't fine was the faint whir of a small battery powered motor.

What wasn't fine was how he had to go home and spend an hours in the shower, shivering beneath cold water because he still heard the way she'd moaned. Or that he hadn't slept at all because wondering who she had fantasized about made him sick to his stomach.

Or the fact that he'd wanted to be the one making her do those things.

---

Danny couldn't look Sam in the eyes for weeks after that, and he curtailed his late night visits. But he did figure out that he wasn't just half in love with her.

No. He was in all the way.


	26. She Said No: Jazz

She Said No: Jazz

It was always phone calls. Danny, calling her for help. She didn't mind, she could understand. There wasn't really anyone he could talk to and hope to have a modicum of true understanding. Except for Tucker, and Tucker was too wrapped up between his two best friends to concentrate solely on one.

Jazz supposed she was expanding her focus, since she was walking up the sidewalk in the park, eyes searching for a figure she expected to find. Danny had called, had said that she'd skipped out, she was having trouble dealing. Even with her therapist.

But Casper High was full of vultures, circling the damaged carcass and waiting to sink their pointy little beaks in. Or maybe it was Danny. The fact that she'd had to be saved, something that Sam could tolerate when it was ghost related, but not when real life came to call.

Ah, there. Curled up on a bench, knees pulled to her chest and arms wrapped around. Head against them, propped up on her chin. And looking so lost. Yes, Sam needed to talk to someone. And sometimes the therapist wouldn't work so well, especially when certain aspects had to be kept secret.

How Danny had gotten into the apartment.

How he had known how to save her.

And the more mundane inquiries that the police had pestered her about until her parents had threatened a lawsuit to stop the harassment. Sam had stuck by the story that she had passed out shortly after Danny arrived. If Danny was to be believed, it wasn't a story. Sam hadn't been conscious to see anything. And since Danny was a terrible liar when it came to anything but his ghost half…

"Sam? She asked quietly as she eased herself onto the bench next to the younger girl.

"Danny sent you." A statement, not a question, and Jazz smiled a little. The psychic connection that wasn't. Right. "He keeps trying to get me to talk to you."

Jazz shrugged, dancing around encouragement. "He's trying to help."

"He already helped enough," Sam whispered against her knees. Jazz said nothing. Time passed, and even without glancing at her watch Jazz knew that it had been considerable. At least an hour, and then Sam finally spoke again. "I feel like it's my fault."

Tears clogged Jazz's throat, and she hesitated before laying a hand on the younger girl's arm. "It's not your fault. It's not ever your fault." Jazz patted her arm ineffectually. "You can't think like this. It was Alex's fault, and still is."

"You said no."


	27. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 11

A Series of Unfortunate Events: XI: Home Now

A call had come in the middle of the night, but it wasn't the first Sam had made since his death. But this time the girl had been hysterical and had only calmed when Jazz had said she'd come and get her. Bring her home.

Now Sam was curled into the passenger seat of Jazz's car as they sat, parked in front of Fenton Works, and Jazz waited for Sam to explain.

"They kicked me out."

No questions. Not yet. And 'they' were her parents; that much was obvious.

"I've been sick."

And Jazz frowned. "Sam, if you'd only go see that grief counselor I told you about—"

"A grief counselor won't help this, Jazz." More silence before Sam finally said, "I'm pregnant."

Jazz's heart stuttered and she almost missed the whisper that followed.

"I don't have anywhere to go."

Jazz reached out and dragged the younger girl into a hug. "Yes, you do," she said fiercely. "You're home now."

---

They gave her Danny's room, only the barest of questions before leaving her to her thoughts. The only real questions had been answered in two words. "It's Danny's."

Sam sighed and closed her eyes as she dropped down onto his bed. Her bed now. She would think of it as their bed, and find what comfort she could in that.

"You'll never know your father," she whispered, laying a hand against her still flat abdomen. "But I'll make sure you know who he is. Who he was."

Sam lay down, burrowing her face into Danny's pillow and letting the remembered smell of him wash over her. It was the first time in three months that she fell asleep without crying herself into exhaustion first, one arm wrapped around the Danny scented pillow, the other cradling her stomach where a child that was half him grew.


	28. She Said No: Pamela

She Said No: Pamela

"Sam, Danny called again." For the life of her, Pamela couldn't understand why Sam was avoiding the boy. Sure she had been heard him. More than hard, but that had changed the day that she'd gotten the phone call from the police.

Not the one that told her that Sam had been assaulted, nearly raped, and Danny had been arrested for attempted murder. They hadn't mentioned that he had tried to rape her and, oddly enough, Pamela had never even thought it was him. But the call she'd gotten, the one where Alex had confessed to what he'd done. That had changed everything.

Because it made so much more sense after that. The disjointed statements Sam would give her, the overt concern from her best friend. She put the family lawyers to work on that, and had usurped the legal fees the Fenton's had already accrued and the charges had been dropped less than a week after they'd been brought against the boy. She'd even twisted the school board's arm into letting him back in without a word.

After all, wasn't it the kind of character that they wanted in a student, when one was willing to do nearly anything to save another?

And still, she was avoiding him. She was avoiding everyone, and it made no sense. Not even when she'd spoken to Sam's therapist about it. The woman—a man would never do after what had happened—was perplexed by her daughter, and in all honesty, so was Pamela.

And still, Sam refused to answer, only laid there on her bed with her pillow cuddled against her, and her back toward her mother.

"Sam. I know that this is my fault," Pamela said softly. "I approved of Alex as I never did Danny. And look, Danny saved you."

Pamela sat down next to Sam and laid a hand on her back. Four weeks, and still she hadn't seen Sam actually cry. And as far as she knew, no one had. Because Pamela was keeping very close tabs on her daughter. She talked to her teachers, her therapist. Even Danny's sister, in an attempt to help Sam. And when Sam wouldn't talk to Danny, Pamela would. But there were no answers; the boy was just as lost as she was, and possibly more desperate.

The fact that he was head over heels in love with her daughter had made her cringe at one time. Not even a month ago she would have screamed at the thought. But there were things that were much worse than Sam being loved by a boy—a man—who would do so much for her. After all, hadn't he stopped one of those things from happening?

"Sam." And Pamela sighed. "You should at least talk to him. I'm not going to try and stop you. There won't be any more restraining order against him. I was wrong about him."

And still Sam wouldn't answer. But Pamela could feel the faint tremors as her hand smoothed the black shirt over the slender frame. And she could definitely see the tears that were slipping from the girls closed eyes. Pamela pulled her daughter to her, holding her tightly. It was answer enough.


	29. Darkness

Darkness

It had been hours since the cave in. Danny had gone after a ghost when it had tried to escape into the ground itself. And when their Mom and Dad had gone after InvisoBill they'd managed to calibrate a weapon that would blast a tunnel down to where the fighting was. Jazz had followed, of course, and so had Sam and Tucker.

They hadn't known that the tunnel was so unstable. It had taken them all by surprise when it had started to go with a creak that echoed up from beneath them. Danny had still been on one side with the ghost, now safely being sucked into a thermos, and Sam had made a dash for him. He'd seen her, realized what was going on, and had tried to protect her.

And then the entire tunnel between them and everyone else had collapsed leaving Jazz and Sam and Danny on one side, and everyone else on the other. They were coming, she told herself. They were coming, they would be rescued. Jazz believed it, had to believe it. It was the only way she could keep herself from becoming hysterical.

Sam had already cried herself into unconsciousness. The fact that Jazz had conked her in the head with a blunt rock might have helped a little, but the poor girl had been hysterical after they'd managed to dig Danny out from underneath the mountain rock and earth Sam would have been buried beneath if he hadn't pushed her out of the way.

She was no doctor, but the fact that his legs had been… _crushed, lacerated, ruined_… damaged badly was pretty obvious. If, when he woke up, he was going to be in agony. And still there were no sounds of rescue coming closer. Dead silent in the darkness.

And then she heard it, the slight change to his breathing. From smooth and regular to think and ragged. And her name on his lips. "Jazz?"

"I'm here Danny."

"What happened?" He sounded so calm, he should have been screaming.

"It collapsed."

"Sam," he breathed, and Jazz reached out in the darkness to smooth his hair back.

"She's sleeping, Danny. You saved her life."

He was silent after that for a long time, and Jazz began to think that he'd slipped back into unconsciousness. His hair was soft beneath her fingers as she stroked it, trying to be comforting but not knowing if the motion was to soothe him or herself. Still soft, even with blood and dirt and dust. And he was awake, she knew he was awake now, because she could feel him moving, when her fingers slipped across his temple she could feel the frantic pace of his pulse.

And his voice again, more ragged, and Jazz wondered if he was crying as he said the fact so calmly, so resolutely.

"Jazz. I can't feel my legs."

She didn't even have the presence of mind to tell him that it was probably better that he couldn't.


	30. She Said No: Dash

She Said No: Dash

Dash wasn't stupid exactly. It was more that he chose not to extend his potential. Because if he did, he'd always be expected to excel at things on top of football. And since his dad had missed the pro's by a hair, it was imperative that Dash make it in. As long as he kept his grades a decent enough level, he could always got to college after the pro's. Or if he made it really big (though he did try to be a little more realistic) he could always live off of the millions he made once he retired.

Either way, he did have a plan for life. And either of them was as likely to succeed as the other. At least right now.

He saw her as he came around the curve of the track between laps fourteen and fifteen. She was sitting up in the bleachers staring at nothing. In fact, if she noticed as he climbed the stairs up to her, she was damned good at hiding it. But the jump wasn't feigned as he asked, "What are you doing here, Manson?" He kept his voice low. Soft and gently. He really wasn't stupid, and in his own way he liked and admired the snarky little Goth girl who'd picked right back at him and his friends through the years.

And it bothered him to see her like this. Especially since whatever she was feeling was echoed by her two shadows. Though Fenton was about a million times worse at it than Foley. At least Foley had his techno-obsession. Fenton could rarely see past Sam Manson.

Even if he'd never admit it.

"Danny's not here. If you want to beat him up you'd be better off looking elsewhere."

Dash nearly smiled. It was the most sarcasm he'd gotten from her in the five weeks since the incident. Not that he'd been really trying. It was hard to try and egg her into attitudes now, not unless you wanted her to freeze up totally and have to be led off to Lancer's office to wait in solitude until someone came and picked her up. It hadn't happened in weeks now, but he got the feeling that it still could.

"Would you be surprised if I said that Fenton wasn't all that bad? And that I wasn't looking to pound him? Ever again?" Dash did smile now, behind his hand as she turned surprised eyes on him. He shrugged, trying to be nonchalant. "He was willing to get arrested and take an attempted murder rap for you."

"Oh."

"You know, people are worried about you," he offered as he carefully looked at anywhere but her. "Especially Fenton." This time he did glance over at her as he added, "He really loves you, you know."

"No he doesn't." Her voice was low, but the vibes between them were changing. Like she was more sure of herself. The habitual denial of anything between her and him, it was familiar. Familiar enough to ground her thoughts and make her a little stronger, and Dash pressed the advantage as much from disbelief as from wanting to genuinely help the girl.

"You haven't seen the way he looks at you when you're not paying attention, have you?"

"He's my best friend, of course he cares."

Dash snorted. "Right. Because Foley would jump through hoops for you the way Fenton does. You know, I've give my arm for a friend like that, for someone who loved me as unconditionally as that."

And now the slip of a girl turned tired lavender eyes on him. "You're not as stupid as you pretend to be, are you?" He lips were quivering, like she wanted to smile, but didn't quite dare. Still, it was something, and Dash chuckled.

"Just don't tell anyone, right?"

She didn't say anything, and went back to silence. After a few minutes Dash began jogging back down the stairs secure in the thought that the girl wasn't staring at nothing anymore. No, now she was almost smiling, and was staring at the sky.


	31. No Other Way

No Other Way

"He's not dead. I'd know if he was."

"Sam, he's not coming back. You have to face it."

"He'll be back! There was no body! There's no proof and _I would know!_" The girl was nearly hysterical as Tucker looped an arm around her shoulders.

He pressed a kiss to her temple as she cried, whispering, "You're right, Sam. You would know."

---

The image poured out of a time portal deep within the Ghost Zone, Sam's hysterical sobs echoing inside Clockwork's mechanical castle. A boy stood there, nearly a man, watching with sad blue eyes. He shifted his weight and ignored the urge to scratch at the arm held to his chest, a thick white bandage wrapped around it, matching the ones unseen beneath his clothes.

"Oh, Sam," he whispered, and reached a hand out to let fingers slip across the surface of the image. "Tell me again, Clockwork. Tell me that there was no other way."

Danny closed his eyes on the tears as he listened again.


	32. The Truth of Dare: 1

The Truth of Dare: 1

Life was good.

A little more than halfway through senior year, surrounded by popcorn, soda, and assorted candies. And friends. Tucker and Danny, one her best friend since kindergarten, the other… The same, and her boyfriend of two and a half years. So how was Sam to say no when Tucker suggested truth or dare? It wasn't like they'd never played before, and there wasn't anything that Sam could imagine Tucker ever asking her that she hadn't already shared.

He was good, but Tucker just wouldn't think of some things. So she was safe. So she agreed.

Danny hadn't even thought of saying no, Tucker knew all of his secrets. Including some things he hadn't managed to confess to Sam. Of course, just blurting out, "I love you," might work. But he wanted it to be romantic. And he trusted Tucker not to spoil anything Danny had planned. Not that he did. But he was trying.

It went easily at first. The usual nonsense. Streaking down the street. That was Tucker, and Sam snapped digitals of it on his PDA. Flying up to the roof to sing the star spangled banner in his boxers. Danny would never regret that one, not when the evil glint in Tucker's eyes told him not to take truth.

But Sam, she took truth. Thinking that anything would be better than having to strip down to her skivvies (or worse) in front of two teenaged males. One who was a complete virgin, and one who had only just unleashed his hormones on his girlfriend of seven months. Sam had missed the way Tucker sized her and Danny up through the first two, and Sam took truth.

"So, Sammy," he drawled as she shifted uncomfortably, glaring for all she was worth. "You refuse to spill the beans, I'll find out another way. Are you a virgin?" The grin was worthy of evil, and Sam's jaw dropped.

Her jaw clenched and she didn't look at Danny as she turned the tears that threatened to come into a pleading stare. "Tuck, I know you're proud of getting laid. But please. I don't want to answer this."

And Tucker, being Tucker, shook his head. "You know the rules, Sam. No flipping it, for any reason. And no lying, because you know we'll know."

And the sad thing was she knew it was true. They would know, no matter what she did now; answered or ran. Or if they didn't know, Danny would suspect. _Oh god…_

And Danny was smiling at her. "Sam, it's okay. There's no reason to be embarrassed." Sweet and unworried until he saw the tears in her eyes. Concern twisting his face and making Sam's heart bleed. She could practically see the thoughts running across his face; he was the definition of 'wears his heart on his sleeve.'

The frightened wondering of why she was so upset about an answer that should be simple. She'd been a virgin since they'd started dating. They'd never had sex. She should still be one, and he had no problem with Tucker knowing.

And yet she still didn't want to answer.

Sam closed her eyes, and her voice was strangled as she said, "No."

She missed Tucker turning to Danny smugly, and Danny's blue eyes following her out of the room. Blue eyes that had suddenly lost their shine as he turned back to Tucker, and stared blankly at the other boy who proceeded to grin like a fool, and said, "So, Sam's not a virgin."

And Danny thought he was going to cry as he whispered, "But I am."

X


	33. A Series of Unfortunate Events: 12

A Series of Unfortunate Events: XII: Breathe

She'd left school early for a doctor's appointment. Her sixteen week checkup and the baby was fine. The heartbeat was strong, rapid, much like the butterfly movements she could sometimes feel in the middle of the night as she lay in Danny's bed staring at the ceiling.

The first hesitant movement of the sexless child she hoped had his eyes.

A son or daughter with those laughing blue eyes.

Home. Trudge up the stairs with the sonogram in hand. Turn the knob, open the door to his room. Her room.

Their room.

And stop dead at the shock of jet black hair on the pillow. The lanky figure, still in sleep as it never was awake.

The rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

_Breathed._

And somehow she couldn't, and the room went black before she hit the floor.

---

She woke to his scent, her face in the pillow on his bed. Just a dream. She sighed and rolled over, careful of the swell of her stomach. Rolled over and right into his arms. And his open, wide awake smile.

"Is this a dream?" she asked softly, and he shook his head as she reached out and ran a hand along the side of his face.

"I'm here, Sam."

"You're an angel," she murmured as tears blurred her vision.

"No," he whispered back as he pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. "I'm really here. I was lost for a little while. I had to find myself again."

"You're dead."

"I'm not. I'm alive. I'm home."

She knew she was more than halfway in shock still, but somehow nothing seemed so bright and sharp as the bright blue of his eyes. The curve of his lips. The angle of his jaw. The way his hand felt where it lay at her waist, oblivious to the curve of child inches below.

"If you're really here," she started, and he shushed her with another kiss.

"I really am."

"In that case, I should probably tell you something."

And he kissed her again, whispered, "Tell me anything, as long as you say you love me."

She took his hand and smiled. "I love you." Then pressed his hand, his warm, living hand, to her belly, smiling all the while as it curved against the swell. "And we're going to have a baby."

And though her brain was still not quite processing everything properly Sam was highly amused at the way Danny's eyes threatened to roll back in his head at the confession. She feathered a kiss along his brow, and whispered, "Just breathe."


	34. Decrepit

Decrepit

"Did you see the legs on that nurse?" Tucker asked Danny, poking his cane into his side.

Danny snorted, then coughed. "For someone who's terrified of anything having to do with the medical profession, you certainly do get along, you know that, right?"

Tucker chuckled. "Some things make it all worthwhile."

"You're a pig," Danny said, his sentiments echoed as Sam sank down next to him.

"Lovebirds," Tucker snorted.

"We are not!" Chorused, not even a breath apart.

"You'd think that you'd have admitted to it by now," Tucker mused as he stared at his best friends.

"And I think you're a decrepit old coot who doesn't know when to keep his dentures closed," Sam snarked back.

Danny only scratched his head and turned his hearing aid down.


	35. She Said No: Lancer

She Said No: Lancer

**I acknowledge that I liked Edward for his first name because of Lacey52's muy excellent fic, _Links in the Chain_. It just worked so well. You guys should go read. Anything of hers. And on to the drabble…**

---

It had been all over the papers that morning, and every news channel that Edward Lancer had turned his television to while preparing himself for yet another day of attempting to drill knowledge into the thick skulls of his high school students. In fact, it had made not only local, but national and international news.

The influence of the Manson family was, without a doubt, vast. They may have made their fortune from toothpicks, but they had increased it exponentially but shrewd investments in companies that had leapfrogged in the stock market in recent years, and then held continually steady once settling at an excellent return.

He could only assume that the near-rape of the daughter of such a prominent family would be news, especially when the would be rapist was found dead in his cell in the hours before dawn. Suicide, they said. Apparent. Even obvious. He had strung himself up against the bars of his cell using a sheet. No one had been in or out, and there was proof of that on video cameras and computer tracked logs for the electronically controlled city jail.

It had been six weeks since the attack on Sam Manson. Five weeks since Danny Fenton had shown back up at school, all charges dropped. The day was bound to be interesting from the get go, both were in his first period English Lit class, along with the other side of triangle, Tucker Foley.

He hadn't been wrong. He'd beaten all of the students to the classroom and, indeed, the school by more than half an hour. They started trickling in and finding seats roughly five minutes before the bell was to ring. There went Dash Baxter who Lancer knew sometimes read Dickens instead of his textbook. And Paulina Sanchez, she was failing the class and would have to retake it in order to graduate.

There was Tucker Foley, and very close behind him was Sam Manson. Tucker was wrapped up in his PDA, a normal occupation if the way he maneuvered around desks, backpacks and sprawled feet without removing his eyes from the screen said anything about it. And Sam, moving more freely than Lancer had seen her do since the day she had returned to school. Like the death had taken a great weight off of her mind.

There was the bell, ringing, and the door opened again, and Danny Fenton stepped through. Tired looking, exhausted even, and Lancer could only try not to choke on his tongue as Sam shot out of her seat and straight for the tousled boy near the door. And then hugged him. She hugged him tightly, her face pressed into his shoulder as he sighed and wrapped his arms around her, the fearful expression he'd had on his face for a moment melting off.

It was the whispered, "Thank you," that made Lancer's eyes burn. She was thanking him, no doubt for saving her life.

But there, adding to the confusion from his desk, was the shocked and stricken look on Tucker's face. Like he'd just heard the most terrible thing he could ever imagine. And then it was gone, melting away into relief. Relief tinged with worry as he stood and paced to Danny, and murmured, "It was you?"

Whatever response there was Lancer couldn't see, but for some reason he thought it was a yes, whatever it was. And then Tucker nodded once sharply, clapped a hand to Danny's back, and like that the world seemed to shift almost back to normal. He told himself not to be surprised when the old rules of high school society clamped back down into the strictures that had been torn down as students changed in the wake of the problem.

He was surprised, though, when the old habits died hard, and the new way of things stayed.


	36. Friends

Friends

We're friends. We always have been. we always will be. It is a constant in my life. It's not something that I ever really worry about, losing her friendship.

Losing her, yeah. Ghost fighting is dangerous.

But I don't ever worry about losing her friendship.

So why am I so afraid to tell her how I feel?


	37. At Ends

At Ends

I am at ends. Either end of the spectrum, and there I am. The best friend. Always the best friend. Always there. And yet… never. I'm never really there. No one ever sees me. Not the one, not the other, and it leaves me at ends.

I don't like being left at ends, it makes me feel unwanted, extraneous to the fluidity of the group. It makes me feel like I'm not really needed at all.

Like I could disappear and not be missed at all.

At either end, here nor there. And no one notices me in the least unless… Unless I do something right. Or something wrong. And I rarely do the former. Both ends, neither. I am at ends.


	38. To Love You More

To Love You More

"I went and saw the doctor today." Sam was curled up on the couch, her head draped against the arm and her eyes half closed and sleepy as Danny closed the door behind him.

There was a pause as he dropped his backpack on the coffee table—no matter what anyone said, even if he was running a successful ghost hunting business, he was _never_ carrying a briefcase—and then dropped down onto the couch beside her, pulling her against him so that she was tucked in his arms.

"What'd he say? Are you okay?"

She smiled against his chest. She'd been feeling sick for months, but it had gotten so much worse lately that nothing she tried to eat wanted to stay down. She'd thought it was a virus for the longest time. Gingko Biloba and vitamin C notwithstanding, and it had only gotten worse. Hence, the doctor's appointment she had tried avoiding.

Not that they weren't doing well enough to be able to deal with that. Between her inheritance, and the prices Danny could get away with charging… No, they were doing just fine. Better than fine.

"I'll be okay. It's just going to take time." It was mysterious, and well worth the wary look in his blue eyes as he looked down at her. "You know how much I love you, right?" And there, the worry. She reached up to press a kiss to his cheek. "Don't be scared. It's alright. It's just, I found someone I love more."

And the sudden fear that streaked across his face as she reached to the end table and the paper that was lying face down on it. She dropped it in his lap and watched the confusion settle, and then the look of wonder as he made sense of the pictures on the sonogram. Her sonogram, and Sam smiled.

She kissed him again, then, and whispered, "So how's it feel, Daddy?"


	39. Little Badger

Little Badger

My boy. Oh, my baby boy.

I thought it was a mistake at first. A coincidence. The Wisconsin Ghost calling InvisoBill by that ridiculous nickname. _Little Badger._ But it happened too often to look over, I couldn't just ignore it. Not when _he_ called _Danny_ the same things. And it explained so much.

The rampant animosity between the two. The obsessiveness of their behavior. The accidents that by boy, my baby boy was always having. I'm a terrible mother for not having noticed sooner. InvisoBill—Danny Phantom—has been flying across Amity Park for more than two years. Which means that the first accident, the accident when he was fourteen, was the only accident.

Everything else… Battle wounds.

And that means that _he_ has been around for much, much longer.

He's so peaceful, he looks like he's sleeping. You'd never know that beneath the skin is a creature from another realm. An echo of life. Not overshadowing. Possessing. Controlling. Animating. My boy. My baby boy. You've been dead for so long; you still walk among us.

This morning you kissed me, and I wanted so badly to believe.

But I can't believe. Not in a lie. My boy, my baby boy. He's dead. He died years ago. And you, whatever you are… You took over his body, his life. Now blood paints my hands. I never thought that a ghost would bleed red. Oh my baby. You've been gone for so long.

And now I've finished it for you.

X


	40. And You're Okay With This?

And You're Okay With This?

**Right, so I don't normally toss in evil little notes, but this idea is nuts enough to require one. This is a precursor to my insanity, as I do have two (yes two) _House_ crossovers planned. And he gets involved with Jazz in both. I can picture her attending a seminar he's been blackmailed into doing, and him being intrigued by her mind. She is exceptionally bright.**

**I admit that it's crack fic. Crack drabble. Whatever. But it was highly amusing in my head, so I share it with everyone else. :D**

---

In all the time he'd been seeing her, House had never understood her paranoia over him meeting her family. Sure, there was a significant age difference. Twenty years (or so, he refused to acknowledge exact measurements of time) would make any father a little upset. Or more. But the level of concern that Jazz exhibited every time he offered to go home with her bordered on insane.

Until the day she finally agreed.

It had taken hours of cajoling, pleading, and downright begging. His knee was never going to forgive him for that, but it was much better than losing her for an entire summer. He would fly to the little town of Amity Park to visit her, instead of sufficing on phone calls, e-mails and instant messaging; none of them were quite adequate when he was feeling more perverse than normal. How she ever put up with his attitude was something he wouldn't understand.

Except that she was graduating magna cum laude with a degree in Psychology and already had admittance to the Master's Program at the tender age of twenty-two. Almost. And that there were some things which she refused to share with him. Most especially when it came to her family, though he couldn't see how they were any worse than his own.

And she had thoroughly charmed them in less than three minutes.

But here he was. Fresh off the plane, two blocks from the airport, with Jazz burying her face in her hands as her parents, an absolutely stunning woman who had a brain like a fine tuned machine, and a mountain of a man who apparently had a fudge factory instead of a brain, ran around chasing what appeared to be a ghost. Not that house believe in ghosts. But he was open to the idea given the fact he wasn't on any drugs, prescribed or otherwise, that would make him hallucinate them.

And the fact that the concept had cropped up in a handful of the medical journals he subscribed to (all the while charging them to the hospital) right before he had cancelled because of the articles. He was rethinking that as he watched the blue skinned ghost get sucked into what looked like a thermos. A silver thermos that show blue light and was held in the hands of another ghost, a teenage boy with white hair and green eyes and… What was it with this town and hazmat?

House made a mental note not to drink the water, just in case.

And then another teenage boy, this one with raven black hair and clear blue eyes jogging up to Jazz's parents and talking to them. The wheels in House's brain turned, whirred. Clicked together as he realized that the new teenager looked a great deal like the ghost. In fact, so much alike that, apart from one being dead and the other being alive, he would've said they were the same person.

And then House saw the silver thermos Tucker behind the kid's back, hidden away in one hand as he strolled over with Jazz's parents. His parents too, he was introduced as Danny. Jazz's brother. And he knew he wasn't the only one to see the kid's eyes flash green.

As devoid of tact as he always was, House looked at the Fenton's as Jazz's jaw dropped the second he opened his mouth. He pointed at the thermos and said, "And you're okay with this?"

The kid, Danny, nearly passed out on the spot while Jazz started stuttering a cover up. And the parents seemed completely oblivious the second she started talking. No wonder she could put up with him; she was used to brain washing her parents on a regular basis. Because her brother was apparently dead. Or half dead, because he was awful damned alive right now.

Right. He was beginning to understand why Jazz hadn't wanted to bring him home. He was already regretting it.

X

---

**Oh hell. Better make it three _House_ crossovers. I want to explore this more, and I can't see myself working it into the other two ideas very well. Well, maybe not. But three on the safe side. You all had better be glad that I haven't already started on my other freaking crossovers of doom.**

**Harry Potter. House. Full Metal Alchemist AND Harry Potter at the same time. Stargate SG-1. Star Wars (that one is all crack.) Anita Blake. Labyrinth. Rocky Horror Picture Show (though that isn't exactly a crossover since they're only going to a live show.)**

**Right. You should all run away now. Really. Go.**

**You're not running. :P**


	41. Sneaking In

Sneaking In

Sam was used to waking up both ways, either alone ands sometimes shivering if it was winter, or very not alone, and without a speck of a sheet on her if it was summer. Sometime during their junior year Danny had started sleeping at her house. A random midnight visit when he was especially exhausted and hadn't been able to keep his eyes open long enough to ask her whatever question he'd been so on about. Something about the trig homework, but still, to this day, she didn't have a clue.

And he'd just looked so damned tired she hadn't the heart to wake him up and send him on his way. So she'd covered him with a blanket and let him sleep at the foot of her bed. That night hadn't been one where he started out feet away and they woke up with not so much as a breath between them. No, he'd stayed at the foot of the bed that night.

But it was, once again, one of those night when Danny fell asleep in her bed.

Two weeks until finals, and Danny was desperately trying to work between studying, actual homework and class work (because the teachers seemed to think that no one needed breathing space to devote to exams), his family and their insistence that he consider the letter of acceptance from the University of Wisconsin (because Danny would never tell them why he couldn't go there, he had once told her he wanted to take the secret of his ghost half to his grave), and ghost hunting. Oh yes, ghost hunting, because the closer it came to graduation, the more often and vicious the incursions.

Like they were actually trying to hurt him before he left the halls of Casper High. Not that they could. At least not much. Danny was just too strong, too stubborn. She fully expected that if Danny died fighting ghosts it would have to be a ghost as strong as Pariah Dark, and maybe even then he'd survive. No, more likely that he'd fight up until he lost the last shred of his energy and fall from the sky to hit the ground as Danny Fenton.

Sam tried not to think of those things much.

Especially not when Danny was sound asleep in her bed, having started at one side, and her at the other. Somehow, and her smile was wry and amused at the same time, they had migrated to the center of her bed, and she was quite happily cuddled against his still, sleeping body. Bittersweet at best; he'd never see her as anything but the best friend who happened to have breasts. If he'd even noticed that she had them.

She sighed. "Sometimes, Danny, I wish you would sneak into my bed for things other than sleep." Soft, almost cynical. And not meant to be heard by anyone since, after all, Danny was sound asleep behind her.

Except those were his fingers tightening across her stomach where his hand was resting, and that was his body shifting ever so slightly closer so that she could feel him hard against her. And those were his lips pressing a gentle, nearly nonexistent kiss to the nape of her neck and making her shiver as her eyes slid closed and she wondered whether or not she should die of mortification.

But no, that was his hand sliding lower, and he was definitely not sleeping. When he spoke she could hear the laugh in his voice, and it was so steady and clear that Sam just knew he'd been awake since well before they'd wound up cuddled against each other.

"Only sometimes, Sam?"

X


	42. Beloved

Beloved

"Your funeral was yesterday."

He knelt at her grave, not caring that his pants were soaked by the dewy grass, that the ground was still unsettled enough to leave a stain. Snowy hair blurred his eyes, and Danny wiped at them. He didn't want to cry, he felt like he'd already cried enough for this lifetime and more. It wasn't fair, to lose her like this.

God. To lose her even at all.

"I miss you so much already, Sam. I wanted… I'm selfish. I wanted you to stay here forever. I keep feeling like we didn't have enough time." He chuckled weakly and shifted on his knees. "I don't think there would ever be enough time for us," he whispered.

"I love you, Sam. So much. So very much." With a sigh he pulled himself up to his feet. "I'll be back soon."

He walked then, stooped with age, gait a distant echo of the carefree youth he'd once hand. His children were waiting at the car. Four of them, three sons and a daughter, and he let them help him into the car. They pulled away from the curb and blue eyes looked back, searching.

No. It wasn't enough. He'd only had sixty-three years with her. And he wished it could have been so much more.

_Samantha Fenton_

_Beloved Wife, Mother, Friend_


	43. Boxers or Briefs

Boxers or Briefs

"Explain this to me again. If it's boxers, Sam wins the cash. And if it's briefs, Tucker does. Yet I, who have no part in this bet, will make no money whatsoever, am the one doing all the dirty work."

Two heads tilted and then pondered. Finally, Tucker shrugged and said, "That seems about right."

Sam nodded. "Yeah. That sums it up."

"And you aren't going to leave me alone until I do it." A statement, not a question, and Danny sighed resignedly at the two nodding heads. "Fine. Fine, I'll do it."

With a glance around Danny knocked his spork off the table and ducked underneath it, supposedly to retrieve it. A flash of light later and Sam heard the muttered comments Danny made as he floated past, invisible.

And then it happened.

Dash yelled and fell headfirst into a trash can as his pants dropped to tangle at his ankles. A flash went off—Tucker's PDA—and Sam smirked as Danny crawled back out from beneath the table.

"Hand it over, Tuck. Sam wins."

"Yes, I do," she smirked as she fanned the stack of ones in her hand. "And so do you, Danny."

"Huh?"

Sam smiled. "I feel the need to celebrate in style. I'm flush, Ghost Boy. Want to go see a movie?"

For a moment Danny stared at her bemused, and then he grinned. "I'd love to. But I'm not pantsing Dash before every date."

Amethyst eyes slid over to Tucker and the grin Sam shot Danny was positively evil. "Deal. But you didn't say anything about Tuck."


	44. What Did You Say? 1

What Did You Say?

1

"Come on, Sam. Tell me what you really think of Danny." Tucker's voice was playful as he trailed behind Sam.

Sam bit back a growl of frustration. He'd spent almost two weeks teasing her as they walked home from school every day—Danny had been busted for trashing the teacher's lounge with Skulker's help, and Lancer had come in when he, as Fenton, had been trying to clean up some of the mess that had been made. It translated to detention. Lots and lots of detention.

Tucker had taken it as a chance to annoy her into insanity.

It was working.

"What do you want me to say?" she nearly shouted as she turned on him. "It's nothing you haven't heard a hundred times before!"

"Something _I_ haven't heard before," he answered quietly, but the odd phrasing was lost on Sam as her anger took over.

"Fine," she hissed, well beyond rational thought. "I can't stand him."

Tucker's jaw dropped as her eyes flashed.

"He's clueless, he never sees what's right in front him. And he never thinks of anyone but himself or _Paulina_," she said, ticking points off on her fingers, sarcasm thick but too much anger layered on top for her words to carry no meaning. Tucker's green eyes were dull as she continued on.

"He's always late, he's always begging homework, and somehow we always get in trouble for him. And what do I get for it? Nothing." She paused, drew a breath in and glared at Tucker.

He swallowed and his voice was soft when he asked, "Anything else you want to add to things I don't know?"

"Sometimes I don't even know why I'm his friend."

He nodded slightly and then suddenly Tucker was blinking and rubbing his forehead as he looked around. "So what did you say, Sam?" he asked, so casually that she blinked in surprise. And then he saw the remnants of the anger, and Tucker reached out and grabbed her arm. "Sam, what did you say?"

"What do you mean?" she asked faintly. "You were right there."

"Sam," he ground out. "What did you say?"

It took her a moment, but the girl went terribly pale. "It wasn't you, was it?" she asked slowly, softly, and Tucker shook his head.

"Sam." And he stopped, understanding.

"I didn't mean it, Tuck," she whispered. "I didn't mean any of it."

"Oh, Sam," he murmured. "What did you say?"


	45. The Truth of Dare: 2

The Truth of Dare: 2

It had been more than a week since he'd seen her. Nine days to the night that Danny's world had been turned upside down. Nine days since Sam had confessed that she wasn't a virgin. And he still was. There was no reasonable explanation for it. The fact that she had cheated wasn't reasonable, wasn't rational, wasn't anything but the worst thing he had ever had inside his head.

He loved her. He loved her then, he loved her now, even knowing this. He was so in love with her, and she hadn't been faithful. It was tearing him apart; it was making his heart bleed inside him. It was killing him, and he knew it.

He'd looked for her everywhere. Her house, the park, her favorite places to go when she was doing the things she liked or just avoiding him and Tucker under more normal circumstances. She wasn't at any of them, she'd skipped school for more than a week, and her parents had only given him a pitying look when he'd asked them where he could find her.

It was the only answer he'd gotten, and it was why Danny was flying over Amity Park looking for his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Ex-friend. He didn't know. He wasn't sure. Not about any of it. But he didn't know how he was supposed to stay with her, either in a relationship, or even a friendship, knowing that she'd done this.

"Would have been better if I'd never know," he whispered weakly, the wind tearing the words from his lips as he skimmed across the roof of Casper High, and then turned due west to over fly that section of the city. There wasn't much there, a lot of residential areas. No parks, no playgrounds except for the one at the elementary school. But it was worth a shot.

Nothing. The silence of a breeze rustling some leaves. The scrape of chains as a swing set drifted. The sound of someone crying like their world had ended.

Wait, what? Crying?

Danny pulled up and turned around, eyes scanning the shadowy playground, searching for the source of the sound. There it was, there _she_ was. Curled into one of the swings, boots trailing across the sandy ground, and face in her hands as she hunched over and sobbed. She was wearing jeans, a sweater, but not even a jacket to try and block out the January cold, and Danny dropped lightly to the ground in front of her, shifting back to Fenton in a flash of light that startled her.

"Danny?" she said, startled as her tear streaked face lifted to face him. He didn't say anything as he shrugged his jacket off and wrapped it around her.

"I've been looking for you," he finally said as she wiped her cheeks with her hands, eyes cast down and refusing to look at him. "We need to talk."

She didn't say anything, and Danny closed his eyes.

"Sam," he whispered, his voice breaking. "How could you? How could you do this to us? How could you do this to me?" His eyes opened and he saw her looking at him then, her eyes shining again, and it snapped the threads of anger in him. "Didn't I mean anything to you? Or was it a joke, Sam?"

Still no response, and he swallowed, realizing that the horrible thoughts he'd been thinking since that night must be true.

"It was a game, wasn't it?" he said, voice low, dull. "It was just something for you to do between your other boyfriends. How many Sam? How many other guys were you with while you were supposed to be faithful to me?"

But that, that did it. He saw it in her eyes as she stood up, hand to her mouth as she backed away, stopping when she ran into one of the supports to the swing set. He saw it when the hand dropped and her voice was harsh and shrill in the empty air as she finally answered him.

"It wasn't my choice, Danny."

The nearly broken look to her eyes, but the strength and resolve as she didn't crumble to pieces before him, and Danny narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you mean it wasn't your—"

Oh. _Oh._

Red blurred Danny's vision for a moment, and he closed his eyes, rubbing them furiously before daring to look at her again. This time, though, he looked. Really looked, and instead of pushing her away like he could see her expecting, he reached out for her. She came into his arms, and he held her tight, pressing a kiss to her hair as she half cried against him. Some tears, more shuddering sobs that were too violent for anything more than reaction.

"I'm sorry, Sam," he whispered against the soft skin of her neck. "I'm sorry, I'm an ass, I should have known you'd never do that. Oh, Sam, I'm sorry."

And he was, far more than he ever could have thought possible.


	46. Fire & Ash

Fire & Ash

Blood. She dreams of it. She dreams of blood, fire and ash.

It frightens her beyond understanding. The violence that waits in the back of her mind, the desire to inflict pain, damage, death on the unsuspecting. More so because she knows that she's him. A gentler version, softer. Because she knows that the violence she knows she is capable of is nothing but a fraction of the things that must wind their way inside him.

He dreams of it, too. She knows. She doesn't know how she knows, but she knows. She knows that in his dreams, the world is painted red with blood, that fire devours anything living. That he rules a kingdom of ashes.

It's why she's never returned to Amity Park. Because of her dreams, because of his dreams, because of blood, fire and ash. Because she's afraid that one day the dream won't be a dream anymore. Because she's afraid that when the dream isn't just a dream, she'll be there at his side, helping him, worshipping him, letting him rule her.

Because she's afraid that she'll be there in his personal hell. The hell he makes out of Amity Park.


	47. Fridays

Fridays

She loved Fridays. They were her favorite day of the week. On Fridays he jammed with the band, every Friday night, at the little hole in the wall pub they frequented since she'd found it at the beginning of their junior year. No age limit, no worries about that, and none of them were interested in the drinks any further than a soda. But Fridays, she loved them.

On Fridays, he'd come to school ready to go there right after. The dark blue jeans that snugged to his lean waist, down sinewy thighs to cover the tops of the black boots he'd taken to wearing on Fridays. The tight shirts, always black or deep, deep blue that emphasized the corded muscle of his upper arms, and the black bands he wrapped about his wrists.

He'd gotten them from the guitarist he'd taken over for. Said they were his good luck charms when he jammed. She wondered if they were good luck for his playing, or if he just liked the way she watched his arms when he wore them. She loved the play of muscle on his forearms, the wristbands only made it more obvious.

He wore the earring always, now, but on Fridays he'd switch it to the hoop with the black sheen painted across it, instead of the silver it normally was. And on Fridays he would come to school with his guitar slung across his back. That was one of the things she loved best about Fridays.

Because on Fridays, before school, after, and always during lunch, he'd play for her. He always said he was practicing when Tucker asked, but she knew, and he knew she knew, that he was playing for her. Fingers sliding across the strings, and down the frets, his other hand strumming or plucking out the melody as his voice was a soft and gentle song that was for her.

But what she loved best was that on Fridays, the girls would always gather around him. It was true; they flocked to him because he had that bad boy image every Friday. They were always there, whether right in his face, or on the edges as he went about the day with his friends. But that never bothered Sam, and always made it better.

Because on Fridays, just like every other day, his blue eyes were on her, and her alone.

---

**This is sort of for PhantomsAngelS2. _From Yesterday_ is still my gift to you, when I have it finished, but this is the rocker Danny thing that refused to be compliant with my wishes. It's been condensed a great deal, but the essence is there, and besides, Danny is just so hot like this.**


	48. The Scream Heard Round the World

The Scream Heard Round the World

It had been three years since the Ghost Boy showed up in Amity Park. Three years of watching him, flirting with him, talking to Danny Fenton and the loser squad to get messages passed on to him. Usually they worked; he would most often show up if she asked. Not that he stayed long, or did much more than tell her happy birthday, you look nice. Any one of a thousand little compliments that Paulina had heard before from everyone else.

Somehow, they always sounded so perfect coming from her Ghost Boy's lips.

Even if he had missed her eighteenth birthday party. Even if he hadn't said yes to the Fall Ball, or the Winter Formal. Even if she'd heard that he was already seeing someone, because just this morning Star and Valerie had been talking about the fact that they'd seen Danny Phantom floating through the sky and wrapped around some girl.

Valerie was sure it was a human girl, too, which only made Paulina more sure that all she needed was a chance to ask the Ghost Boy to Prom. He'd say yes, he wouldn't turn her down again. She wouldn't let him.

Which was why Paulina was prowling around the park with the sun already sinking low in the sky. She'd seen him flying past with the mechanical ghost, and she knew that when he finished she needed to be there to ask him. All she had to do was find him, but it had been so quiet that she wondered if he'd already beaten the mechanical ghost and flown to wherever he stayed when he wasn't protecting her.

With a sigh, Paulina turned to leave, but stopped when she heard a faint moan. _That… sounded like the goth geek,_ she thought to herself, and then a smile spread across her face as she crept towards she sound on the other side of the gazebo. Another moan, this time much deeper, and a husky, "You like that, do you?"

Paulina's eyes went wide and she took one more step forward, and then stopped dead in her tracks.

There, at the side of the gazebo, was Sam Manson. Pressed up against the cement and wood, her legs wrapped around his waist, his hands more than halfway underneath her skirt, and being thoroughly kissed by Danny Phantom. Her Ghost Boy.

The screaming was heard throughout the park, and there were actual calls to the police to report it from as far away as the edge of town. Some people swear that it echoed all the way up the coastline of Lake Michigan, and others swore that it even made it as far as Canada. And some were sure that it was heard from much, much farther away.


	49. Silence

Silence

"Stop it!" she screamed at Maddie. "You're killing him!"

Maddie only stood there with the leveled at Phantom, where he was crouched on the ground screaming as it drained his ectoenergy. "He can't die again, Sam," she said coldly. "He's already dead."

Then the beam was broken as Maddie was sent flying through the air as Jazz tackled her to the ground, scrabbling for the gun to smash into the unforgiving asphalt until it was shattered beyond use. The only sound left was Phantom's ragged breathing as Sam dropped to her knees by his side and ran a hand across his forehead, brushing white hair out of his eyes.

"Danny," she whispered, as she saw the telltale blue glow at his waist, and her eyes widened as he looked up at her, green eyes dull.

His voice was harsh when he finally spoke, a faint, painful sounding thing. "Sam, I-I can't stop it."

Sam heard a grunt from behind her as Maddie pushed Jazz off of her, and a scraping sound as the older woman climbed to her feet and started towards Sam and Danny, and then Danny's green eyes finally slipped closed and the chill of the transformation raced through Sam's hands as the blue light flared and raced across Danny's body.

Then there was silence.


	50. What Did You Say? 2

What Did You Say?

2

"Danny, can I talk to you?" Sam asked, half afraid of what he would say. Yes or no, the answer still made her stomach churn.

He'd been avoiding her. And tucker. Both of them, to the point where she wanted to yell at him, maybe smack him upside the head for stupidity. But she had no right, since she was the cause. She couldn't even blame him, not entirely, not even mostly. She'd gotten the story out of Tucker that fateful afternoon before Christmas break, and here it was, nearly a week into the new semester…

Tucker had talked Danny into overshadowing him. He'd suggested it, encouraged it. He had also suffered Sam's wrath because of it. And now Sam was cornering Danny in, of all places, the school library. He'd been going there instead of lunch, and it had taken her nearly the entire week to figure out where he'd been hiding.

Startled blue eyes shot up at her from the notebook he'd been scribbling in. dull, unhappy, shadowed blue eyes, and Sam's heart thumped painfully hard in her chest as she saw how much her foolish and angry words had hurt him.

"Right now?" he asked, and looked back down at the scrawled notes he'd been making. "I'm kinda busy right now."

"Danny, I wanted to talk to you about what I said. I didn't—"

"It's no big deal," he cut her off.

"Danny, you've been avoiding me," she said quietly, silently begging him to look at her again.

He kept his eyes on his work as he said, "I've been busy."

"Yeah," she said, eyes finding the bandage that trailed from beneath his right sleeve, and the faint bruises on his left wrist where some ghost had grabbed him too tightly. He'd been busy, she knew. She'd seen him half killing himself when he went up against ghosts alone, but he was doing it. He was, and it made her sick to know that he was taking care of himself. With Jazz off at college, he was taking care of himself instead of talking to her and letting her explain and letting her take care of him.

"Danny, I—"

He cut her off again with a sudden shake of his head and he stood, shoving his books into his bag and shrugging his jacket on, still without looking at her. "There's nothing to talk about, Sam. It doesn't matter; freedom of speech and all that."

He shouldered his bag and finally looked at her again. He opened his mouth, and closed it, shook his head and sighed. "Don't worry about it, Sam. I'd rather know the truth, anyway."

She gasped and reached out to him, but he shifted away. "Da—" This time he didn't even let her finish his name before stopping her.

"It was going to happen, anyway," he said. "Senior year, going off to college in a bit. We were going to drift. So does it matter if it happens a little sooner?" He looked at her for a moment and then turned on his heel and strode off out of the library, the doors swinging shot behind him.

"We weren't going to drift," she whispered. After all, they'd all applied to the same school.

---

"How'd it go?" Tucker asked as Sam slid into the chair next to him.

"It didn't," she said miserably. "He shut me down. Just completely shut me down. I got out maybe a dozen words."

"He'll come around, Sam. This is Danny," tucker said, trying to reassure her. But he wasn't feeling to reassured himself. How was he supposed to reassure her when he had the terrible feeling that Danny wouldn't?


	51. Trained

Trained

**Yes, this is meant to peg the Harry Potter series, and a certain character in particular. I loved the idea, it was just so very wrong….**

**---**

"You know I love you guys, right?" Danny asked his two best friends as he watched the leg of his pants with a very odd expression.

"Of course you do, Danny," Sam said with a grin as she watched the lump that was moving up Danny's calf, beneath the denim of his jeans.

"Tell Sam you love her again," tucker laughed as the lump moved higher and then balled back around as Danny winced.

Tucker—owww!" Danny yelped as the ball moved again, rapidly and sharp. "You little monster!" he cried as he clamped a hand to his thigh. "It bit me."

"Its _name_ is Draco, Danny. And you should relax. You're making him nervous," Sam said as she soothed the lump beneath his jeans where it was curled at his calf.

Danny glared at his ankle as the ball moved down and a snow white head peeked out. He looked up at Sam who was stroking the creature's head and cooing to it. "I do love you guys, but what the hell possessed you to get me a ghost ferret for my birthday?"

Tucker chuckled. "Ask Sam. Who do you think taught it to hide in the leg of your pants?"


	52. What Did You Say? 3

What Did You Say?

3

He'd managed to avoid talking to them more than necessary for more than two months. It was nearly into March, and Tucker was beginning to wonder if Danny would ever be their friend again. It made for some really, truly terrible days with Sam. At her worst she damn near hated Tucker, and he couldn't even defend himself since, in all reality, it had been his idea in the first place.

On her better days, though, Sam wouldn't mention Danny at all, and would only look the other way when he came in her line of sight. There weren't very many of those. The bad days were almost always spurred by the pain that Tucker knew was still fresh in her mind and heart, the guilt that ate at her. Those were the days that she tried to talk to Danny, to tell him what happened.

To tell him she was sorry, she didn't mean it.

Those were the days Danny shut her down as completely as he did the first time she tried. Those were the days that Danny would disappear between classes, when no one could find him even as he moved between classes from room to locker to room. Those were the days Tucker hated himself for trying to push his friends together.

Those were the days when Tucker wished he dared make a wish. But he knew that if he did, Desiree would only twist it into something worse. And he couldn't think of anything that could be worse, unless one of them was dead.

But today was going to be the worst day of all. He knew it, it wasn't something he had to think about as he waited for Sam to find him outside after school and fall into step beside him. But instead of going straight to the Nasty Burger, Tucker steered them into the park and guided Sam to a bench.

"Sam, we need to talk." She arched one dark eyebrow and Tucker sighed. "I talked to Jazz this morning. She said that Danny got his acceptance letter."

Her face split into a wide grin. "That's great! I was beginning to get worried."

And the hard part. Tucker wrapped an arm around her and held her tightly, so that she wouldn't be able to jump up, scream at him, maybe try and hunt Danny down and make another futile attempt to tell him the truth. He ignored it when she tried to squirm away, and bit his lip before finally speaking.

"Sam, his letter was late because he withdrew his application to UI-Amity Park."

"Tuck, that doesn't make any sense. How could he get accepted if he withdrew it?" she asked, the voice of reason and missing what Tucker was attempting to be delicate with.

"The letter wasn't from UI-AP. The letter was from a different school."

"Okay, so he applied to a second choice." Her eyes were wide and pleading as she almost whispered, "No big deal, right?"

Tucker shook his head. "Jazz said it's the only place he applied."

She jerked beneath his arm and he held her tight, keeping her from jumping up and running, and forcing her to turn to him when the tears came. They were followed by words, muttered and low but still clear enough for Tucker to hear the things she was calling him, and herself, too. Sam even tossed a few names at Danny, though they were few and far between.

"Everything's so messed up, Tuck. What do I do?" she whispered against his shoulder as she tried to blot her eyes on her sleeve.

"I don't know, Sam," he said softly. "I don't think there's anything we can do."

She pulled away, and Tucker let her this time, knowing she wasn't going to do anything foolish. "We were supposed to be friends forever. We were supposed to go to college together, and then live in the same town." She turned frantic eyes on Tucker and gasped. "Where? Where is it? Where is he going?"

Tucker flinched, and swallowed. "Florida, Sam. He applied to the University of South Florida."

Her face twisted as she fought the tears, and Tucker was almost proud of her when she won, and they only clung to her lashes instead of slipping down her face. "It's so far away."

"I know, Sam. I know."

It was all he could say.


	53. Both

Both

It had been a horrible battle, terrible and violent and not without sacrifices. Death had been their acquaintance since the assault on Amity began, people they barely knew, some they knew in passing. None they knew well, thankfully, and the last line of defense held strong until the final push. They were the only hope, and when it came to it differences were pushed aside to form new, if fragile alliances. Animosity was ignored; they knew that, when they had survived it, they could deal with it then.

There were seven of them, mostly known, but for two, and the secrets of their identities given over when secrecy was outweighed by necessity.

The Red Huntress, Valerie, gave hers up the first battle. To save her father. The Fenton's, the only people who actually had working knowledge of ghosts, and had the brilliance to find new ways to counter them. Jazz, Sam and Tucker. The corner stones of Team Phantom, the base of the triangle that kept him sane, made him whole.

And Danny Phantom. Danny Fenton. He gave the secret up the day the first death came to be. He wasn't feared, he wasn't revered. He was… ignored. By the very town he struggled to protect for nearly four years. Ignored.

The final battle destroyed the park, the Nasty Burger, the high school. And everything and anything in between. Nothing living, except for those fighting, and of those only two died. One was already dead. One was only halfway there.

And left in the aftermath, the remains of Amity Park's defenders. Broken, bloodied, but alive. Six of them alive, six of them left behind. Six of them wondering how there were six of them, instead of five. Because the blast that killed Danny took out nearly a city block, and him, but left the only other person there in one piece.

Of them all, it was Tucker who wasn't surprised when Sam decked Valerie and took her jet sled, hopping on it with the ease of much practice and taking off like a bat out of hell for Fenton Works and the ghost portal. The Ghost Zone. The answers she so desperately needed.

Tucker understood and only blinked before snatching Maddie Fenton from the Specter Speeder and following, not waiting for anyone to try and join him. He nearly lost her twice, but it didn't matter. He knew where she was going, and trailed along easily. After all, there was only one ghost who might have the answers to her questions.

---

"Bring him back!" Sam demanded as she stormed into Clockwork's castle, the ticking and grinding of the gears grating on her nerves a she stared around, tears streaking her face and blood smearing her hands. His blood, Danny's blood, and she tried not to think about it to much.

She heard the slam of the door behind her as Tucker followed, but she didn't care and didn't look as she headed straight for the robed ghost floating in front of his time portal. "Bring him back," she said again, this time not as harsh and demanding, but just as desperate.

"I can't." Clockwork's voice echoed through the castle and Sam shivered.

Then she swung out, barely being stopped as Tucker grabbed her from behind and yanked her back. "Bring him back!" she screamed, her voice breaking. "Bring him back, you can do it! You've done it before, you're his guardian!"

"I can't," Clockwork said again, his voice even and as cool as ice. "I've rearranged time too many times as it is, I can't do it again. Not for this, not now."

"Do it," Sam whispered as she let Tucker pull her against him. Her stomach churned and she felt sick, dizzy and weak. "Please, please don't take him away from me. I should be dead too. I should be dead, why am I alive?"

Clockwork turned and looked at Sam, his glowing red eyes narrowed as she sobbed. "Would you have me dishonor his last wishes? The only thing he asked of me, and I did it."

"What? What did he ask you?"

Clockwork sighed and floated closer. "To keep you safe. To keep both of you safe." Without another word he reached a gloved hand out to the girl whose hysterics were near violent. He touched her, one icy finger to her temple, and she collapsed against Tucker without so much as a sigh.

"He knew?" Tucker asked as he cradled Sam close and looked up at the ghost.

Clockwork shook his head. "No. He asked for a different reason. Take her home; she needs her rest."

---

It took Sam three months to understand the confusion that seemed to stem from Clockwork's words that night. It took Tucker only a little longer than that. By the time everyone else had figured it out, Tucker had made his own promise to Danny, sworn on his life at his best friend's grave.

"I'll protect them for you, Danny. I'll keep them safe. Both of them."

It was Danny's last secret.


	54. What Did You Say? 4

What Did You Say?

4

Little more than a month remained until graduation, and Sam sighed as she accepted a cup of punch from Tucker. "I don't want to be here," she whispered as she watched the events on the stage. Paulina, being crowned queen to Dash's king.

It was prom night, something she'd hoped to share with Danny. Whether as friends or something more… At this point, she'd take just being in the same room as him. But he hadn't come. Despite Tucker's inside information that Danny had planned on attending his senior prom, he wasn't here. and given the fact that the party had already been raging for three hours, and was scheduled to let out in another, Sam didn't think he was coming.

"Tuck," she said tiredly as she sat the punch down on the table in front of her. "I'm going to go, okay? I'm tired, and I don't feel very good."

It was true enough, and Tucker accepted it with a nod. "You want me to walk you home? Or are you going to call for your limo?"

It was a faint teasing smile, and Sam shook her head to both. "I'm going to walk by myself. I just want to be alone. But you and Val keep the limo. Promise?"

Tucker nodded and chuckled a little then reached out and squeezed Sam's hand. "Be careful, and if you need anything, call me."

---

It was no surprise that Sam found herself in the park. She'd found herself there a lot since Danny had stopped speaking to her and Tucker. No, that wasn't fair. He still talked to them. hello, goodbye, do we need our books for third period type of things. Nothing more intricate, and anytime she tried to talk to him, really talk to him, he shut her down or walked away.

It was like screaming into space. No one was listening, and no one was going to.

But the screaming she was hearing now wasn't a metaphor for how she felt. No, it was the pained sound that Danny made as he tumbled down through the air to create a crater in the ground ten yards in front of her, grass caving, dirt flying, and cracks racing out around the radius. Sam's heart was in her throat as she watched him shale his head, once, twice, then launch himself back up into the air.

It was Skulker that he was fighting with. Skulker and some very nasty upgrades that had Sam ducking to the right trying to avoid getting any green ectoblood on her satin black prom dress. He took another hit that had her darting out to his side where he crouched on the ground, and blazing green eyes turned on her.

"Get out of here," he spat at her before he was airborne again, and Sam's heart twisted at the anger he'd put into the words. Her eyes dropped, and then widened as she saw the thermos lying forgotten on the ground by her feet, and she stopped to pick it up before looking back up in time to see Danny driving a fist into Skulker's armor and tearing off an arm.

She took a step back, and gasped when another arm went, this one detonating as Danny tossed it away, rocking Danny and Skulker both where they floated. "Danny!" she cried. "The thermos!"

She saw him reach behind his back and check, and he glanced down at her for a moment before turning away with a set to his jaw that frightened her.

It was only a minute before Danny was back on the ground in front of her, Skulker's mostly disassembled body armor in a steaming pile behind him, and Skulker clenched in Danny's hand, screaming imprecations until Danny squeezed his tiny body and threatened to toss him down the sewer.

"I told you to leave," he said to her, and Sam flinched at the heat behind the words.

She held out the thermos, clenched tightly in her hands. "I just wanted to help, Danny." He stared at her a long moment before shifting back to Fenton, and Sam had to force herself not to step forward to try and clean the blood, now red, that streaked his face. Without a thought she stripped one of her black gloves off and held it to him. "For your cheek. The cut."

"I don't need it," he said without moving. "I don't need your help. I don't want it. Go back to your dance, Sam."

"Danny," she said softly, suddenly feeling horribly exposed as cold blue eyes looked her over. She ran her ungloved hand across her other arm and shivered. She'd picked it for him, before the fight. She'd thought… but it didn't matter what she though. Floor length, black and strapless… Not for Danny anymore. It was too late.

"Can't we still be friends?" she asked softly, the thermos cold in one hand, and the soft glove twined in her other.

"No." It echoed in the silence of the park. "I don't want to be your friend. I don't need you."

This time he didn't walk off, he took to the air with a flash of brilliant light, and Sam looked up after him, the empty and unused thermos still in her hand. The park was still empty, and she was grateful for that as her eyeliner began to streak down her cheeks on waves of tears.


	55. Magic 8 Ball

Magic 8 Ball

He'd bought it on a whim, not really thinking that he'd use it for anything but a paperweight. But somehow Danny found himself sitting at his desk with the Magic 8 Ball in his hands, turned over and shaking it.

"If I ask her out, will she say yes?"

_Signs point to yes._

"Right, a fluke," he muttered, though he eyes the black ball in his hands with an odd look on his face. He shook it again.

"Is she going to kick my ass for asking?"

_No._

Shake. "If I ask her, is she going to say no?"

_No._

Shake again. "Is she going to be upset?"

_No._

Shake again. "So she's going to say yes? And she's going to be happy about it?"

_Yes. Signs point to yes._

Danny sighed. "I don't know." And the 8 Ball shook in his hands. Words appeared in the blue window, and his jaw dropped.

_What do you need? An engraved invitation?_

Then a nasally voice filled the room. "Ask her already, child!"

Danny glared. "See? I knew it was too good to be true. Do we fight? Or are you going back quietly, Technus?"

Technus waved a hand at Danny and began sinking through the floor. "No fear, Child, I'm going. But you…"

"Hey!" Danny yelped as Technus disappeared.

All the same, he did pick up the phone.


	56. What Did You Say? 5

What Did You Say?

5

They were officially graduated. It was wonderful, painful, and Tucker hated how silent Sam had been at the actual ceremony when Danny's name was called and he crossed the stage. He hadn't even smiled when Lancer had passed him his diploma in its faux red leather case, and had barely said thank you as he shook the teacher's hand and walked offstage.

No one had seen him since, and Tucker knew Danny hadn't been home last night. No, he'd said that he was going to a party and disappeared on his family. Tucker knew; he and Sam had come by to try and talk to Danny. Again. It was to the point where even the Fenton's were trying to help, and Jazz most of all now that she was home for the summer.

Out of all of them, Jazz was the only one that knew the entire story, and she'd only told them that patience was the best thing.

Except that patience seemed to be pushing Danny farther away.

Tucker sighed as he saw Sam hading his way, and he lifted a hand in a wave, hating the way she barely smiled at him. She still blamed herself, and Tucker didn't think that it was fair for her to do it. It was mostly his fault. After all, Sam would never have said anything like what she did in front of Danny knowingly. No, she'd just get red faced and flustered and threaten to hurt him.

That's why he'd talked Danny into the overshadowing trick. It'd backfired, and Tucker turned his thoughts away from it as Sam fell into step beside him. "Are you sure you want to do this, Sam?" he asked as they rounded a corner and then crossed the street to climb the stairs of the Fenton home.

She nodded and reached out to knock. The answer came quickly and unexpectedly in the form of Jazz, distinctly upset, her eyes bloodshot and her hair in disarray.

"We wanted to talk to Danny," Sam said softly.

"You can't," Jazz said, a pained look shooting across her face, and Tucker looked at her worriedly.

"Why not?" Sam pressed. "I thought we all decided that the truth needed to come out, no matter what."

Jazz glanced at Tucker, her eyes wide, and Tucker reached for Sam without a second thought, knowing somehow that whatever Jazz was about to say would rock the girl's world. And it did, Tucker could feel Sam crumpling against him in shock as Jazz spoke.

"He's gone. He left this morning; he starts summer classes next week."

---

**Now, before anyone gets the bright idea to murder me for saying that this is the last drabble for this series (because it is) read the next sentence. IT'S GOING TO BE SOMETHING MORE. I'm working on something that comes after this, and I think that it'll be a long oneshot, or a series of them, or a chaptered fic. Whichever.**

**So it's not being left hanging, though I don't promise a happy ending. Not in the least. But I can promise you that, while the drabbles only covered the inner workings of Sam and Tucker, all of what Danny had been thinking and feeling will come out in the next piece.**


	57. Toy Soldiers

Toy Soldiers

Danny had been sixteen when it happened. His sixteenth birthday, actually, and Maddie had never made the connection. The denizens of the ghost zone had declared Phantom anathema for protecting the humans, no matter that Amity Park was his acknowledged haunt. It was more that he was rarely seen outside of his infamous ghost fights, to the point where even Jack and Maddie had been forced to admit that Phantom wasn't like the other ghosts.

They'd laid their arms down, refused to hunt him anymore. And then the revolt. Constant battles throughout the city as Phantom tried to protect the city, more and more often failing because he was one and they were many. And then one day all of that had changed. A year in, maybe a few months ago, Phantom had shown up and used something Maddie had never seen him use before.

Strategy.

And he'd won. He'd continued to win. Not without cost, not without injuries and property damaged. Even when Phantom had disappeared for nearly a month, the ghosts had still attacked. He'd returned, saved the town. Again.

It frightened her. He seemed so young for a ghost. Often he reminded her of Danny, sometimes forcefully. They way he spoke, the way he moved. The nervous habits he always displayed when interacting with humans. How he would never meet her eyes, or Jack's after a battle that hadn't gone perfectly with no damage.

It frightened her, too, the way Danny would disappear so often, and come home with unexplained injuries. She'd long since realized that he was a supporter of Phantom. She was smart enough to understand that, somehow, he was friends with Phantom. And was obviously helping the ghost in any way he could, even if it put himself in danger. Tucker and Sam, too, but she didn't worry about them the same way that she worried about Danny. He was her son, her only son, her baby boy no matter how tall he'd grown, how many candles he blew out each year.

He was supposed to be home.

But he wasn't, his room was empty. The bed was made; that meant Sam had been here. The computer was still glowing in the darkness. That meant that Tucker had, too. And the floor was swept clean of clothes and books and anything that might get in the way. She could see it piled around the room. A corner hear, socks and a shirt poking from beneath the bed. The closet door was half open and she tried not t o think about how he'd managed to stuff as much into it as he had.

In fact, the only thing left out were little, green, plastic toy soldiers. They were standing in innocuous formations across the floor. _I didn't know that Danny still had those,_ she thought silently. Then frowned. _I didn't know that he even still played with those things._

She stared at them for a moment before turning away and shutting the light off. The door closed behind her and Maddie went quietly down stairs, her body on automatic as it tugged ingredients for Jack's favorite cookies out. Baking always calmed her. Baking always soothed her mind so that she could think through the problem she felt brewing behind her eyes.

But it wasn't until much later that night, and several dozen batches of cookies later, that Maddie realized why those little toy soldiers bothered her so much.

They didn't look like toys lying around.

They looked like battle plans.


	58. One Thing

One Thing

I've always been a woman of science. Everything has its place, everything has its explanation. Even things of fantasy like ghosts. Their explanation is simple: a post mortem psychic residue imprinted on ectoplasm. It's real, it's there, it's scientifically proven by more researchers than myself. I was just the first.

But lately I've realized that there's something that has no explanation, rooted in science, or anything else that I can turn my mind to.

I knew that Danny had changed when he started high school. He was growing up, he was getting older, more independent. That was normal, that was expected. I expected it when I woke up one day and realized that my son towered over me by nearly a foot. I was expecting it when his voice changed, and the familiar sound become deeper. I was even almost expecting it when he finally asked Sam out.

Those were the controls in my life, at least where Danny was concerned.

But when he started having nightmares after he turned fifteen, it was unexpected. I couldn't imagine what would make him scream himself awake at night, but it could be explained rationally. Nightmares, night terrors. Any one of a hundred things that would make him that frightened. I'm sure they probably center around his family, his girlfriend, his best friends.

I could even rationalize away Jazz being the one to comfort him after these night terrors. They'd grown so close after Danny started high school. You'd never know it to watch them fight and bicker, but to a mother's eyes it's there. I admit, it hurt to know that she was the one soothing his fears, but it was what he wanted, needed. There was nothing I could do but interfere. The pain of bowing out gracefully and pretending that I hadn't noticed anything wrong was terrible. But it gave Danny a sense of comfort to think I knew nothing, that he hadn't screamed that loud.

Dozens, maybe hundreds of more things. Tiny, minuscule things that I can rationalize away. But so many. Too many. And Jazz is gone now, off to Harvard and already two years into her psychology degree. And Danny is thrashing in his sleep as I watch, his long body twisting in shapes that shouldn't be possible as he tries to fight whatever thing it is that made him scream loudly enough to wake me.

That wasn't new. It happened often enough. But finding my son, asleep and dreaming violently, all the while floating four feet above his bed.

That is one thing I can't explain.


	59. Me

Me 

She wasn't the most cheerful of people by choice, the gothic attitude being so deeply ingrained that it was second nature. But she was usually much more cheerful than she was feeling as she walked alongside Tucker to Danny's house. Then again, it wasn't every Sunday morning that she woke up knowing that she'd been ditched. It wasn't his fault, though, and she knew it. But the real annoyance was that she knew it was going to happen again, and far too often for her to be pleased about it.

"So how'd it go, Sam?" And Tucker, right on cue with the overzealous question she'd hoped he'd avoid.

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "It didn't. He had to cancel."

"What?

Of course, it was a redeeming quality that Tucker sounded ready to murder Danny, whether or not the other boy had ghost powers and the ability to kick his ass with both eyes closed, arms tied behind his back, and both legs trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

"He said there was a ghost problem. That he really wanted to but couldn't."

her voice was very, very quiet as she said it. It had hurt to hear him say it. More so because she'd waited for three years before he'd finally seen what was in front of him. Three years for him to say the words, to ask her out. Three years to be shoved to the side because he was hero. And it hurt.

She felt Tucker's arm go around her and bit her lip against the sudden burning in her eyes. "Sam, he's crazy about you. He might kill me for telling you, but he's been crazy about you for a long time. He's just…"

"A coward." Danny's voice had both of their heads shooting up startled. "I'm sorry, Sam. About last night. I'm really, really sorry. But it wasn't something I could do anything about."

She mustered up a smile and he gave her a faint echo of it, but his eyes were tired and shadowed. He didn't move, just watched her as she and Tucker both found their way to him and where he stood, just at the corner of his street. He looked… tired. Transparent. Like he was being stretched too thin and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Sam found her voice. "It's okay, Danny. I understand. Don't have to like it," and she smiled. "But I understand."

"I hope so," he murmured softly as they made it past him. He didn't offer to touch them, only stood there, turning as he watched them stop dead in their tracks.

An ambulance, to police cars. Jazz holding on to her mother on the front stoop, face hidden by her hair. It wasn't hard to tell the younger girl was crying, not with the way her body shook. Maddie's face matched Jack's; confused, frightened. Lost. Much like Tucker and Sam's faces when they turned back to their best friend. Danny only watched them, his eyes lost in the pain and sadness they saw there.

"Danny…" Sam whispered.

Tucker started to reach out to Danny and then hesitated, torn, and afraid of what he wanted to ask. But the words were already past his lips before they could be stopped. "What ghost was it this time?"

"Me."

It was soft but carried across to them. And then Danny closed his eyes and faded into the sunlight.


	60. Lace 1

Lace

1

She doesn't get new boots very often, but when she does she always has them shipped. She never goes to the store to try them on; somehow she always knows the exact size that she needs. I've never seen her in a store trying clothes or shoes on. Jewelry—once. But I was sworn to secrecy so no one will ever know that Sam has a secret fetish for, not amethysts or some other equally purple stone, but the simplicity of emeralds.

These newest ones are just delivered, ironically enough when she's stopped the study session long enough to complain that her old boots are starting to fall apart while she waits for the new. Untrue, but my Sam has never been patient. I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of other Sam's out there in Clockwork's myriad different futures, but _my_ Sam has never been and will never be patient.

But the new boots are here and she's chortling in delight as she opens the box and yanks them out. More annoyance as she digs deep inside to find the crumpled brown paper that all new shoes, be they boot or not, have shoved and stuffed around and in them. And then a sigh of pleasure as she tugs off the old and sends them flying past my head so that I have to duck to avoid being hit.

No going ghost, not with her parents in the house and the off chance that one or the other or both might open the door unexpectedly to make sure we're really studying. Not that Sam will ever consider anything else. She intends on seeing my C average brought up to a B in a matter of months. I wish her the luck of it; it's not going to happen. I can retain all kinds of information about ghosts, their powers, and battle tactics and plans. But ask me to tell you what a hypotenuse is and you may very well wait forever.

"This is the one thing I despise about new boots," she mutters as she works the laces in and out of the empty eyelets. "I hate having to lace them up. Do you think if I paid them they're lace them for me next time?"

I laugh at that. Whoever says that money can't buy happiness needs to learn what, exactly, to spend it on. Forget the huge houses, the five cars and two SUV's. just pay someone to lace your shoes for you and all will be well.

"I'd have thought breaking them would be the worst," I offer as she flips her hair from her face and works the lace through yet another hole.

"No. Lacing them is the worst," she responds in a near growl.

I don't laugh this time because a very strange thought has come into my mind. A thought that treads the perilous ground I—we—have so carefully avoided since we were fourteen. It almost seems a shame to waste three years of hard won denial; I can't help myself.

Before I can change my mind I find myself on my knees before her, one slender foot next to my knee and the other, already encased by the fake black leather she loves so, propped on my thigh. I pull her hands away from the boot and the laces and fold them gently but firmly into her lap and smile up at her, trying not to let it be anything other than friendly.

I know I've failed as she blushes a pretty pink, and I toss any pretense of mere friendship to the wind. The danger has already come and I haven't avoided it. I don't want either, so I let my voice drop and my fingers slide down her thigh, across her knee and down to the laces.

"Let me."


	61. Stoic

Stoic

"Did you ever think that it would be like this?" He shrugged and she smiled faintly as she sipped at her coffee. "No, really," she insisted. "Did you ever think that it would come down to this: human versus ghost? If I weren't sure of my sanity I'd be doubting it right now."

"It does stretch the imagination," he said noncommittally as he blew at the steam rising from his own coffee.

She chuckled. He was a rookie. An unusually gifted rookie, but still a rookie, and she was one of the section commanders. Of course he'd be stoic, trying to maintain the good little soldier routine. He couldn't know that inside she was just as weirded out by all of it as he had to be. It had been a quiet fight until the massacre at Amity Park. The day that Danny Phantom had disappeared had been a banner day for them, and if they'd even had a name they could have overshadowed the Guys in White after that victory.

"How old were you when it happened?" she asked, still pressing him.

"When what happened?" Cool, even—not betraying a hint on whether he either knew or didn't know what she was asking.

"Amity," she said as she sipped again from the warm Styrofoam.

He glanced away and she was surprised at that. He'd been perfectly stoic to that point. "I was sixteen."

"Did you lose someone?"

His eyes flashed back to hers and she was surprised that they were just as dead and empty as before. "My whole family. Everyone I loved."

"What are you even doing here?" The tone in her voice was more curious than prying, an almost desperate struggle to reconcile the stoic young man she saw with the vicious and efficient killer she knew anyone working for them would come to be. It was a struggle and she simply couldn't make the equation work.

Then he smiled at her and his icy blue eyes shifted to a brilliant, burning green.

"I'm here to destroy you all," he said pleasantly, and she could only sit there in shock as more blinding green built around his hands. The horrible glow was the last thing she saw.

---

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	62. Unconventional

Unconventional

It was a strange relationship to start with. There was the age difference. There was the distance between them. There was the intellect. Not that either of them was less than intelligent, but genius comes in different levels to everyone. There were dozens of things that made it strange, eccentric.

Any of them would have been a strong enough reason to want to keep it to themselves, to not share the details with anyone. Both knew that if there was anyone who would understand, that person wasn't there yet. Maybe not ever. So stayed quiet. Hidden and out of sight and above reproach—no one ever had a reason to question them.

It was safest that way, when she was alive, and he was dead.


	63. All That Remains

All That Remains

It was a questionable victory at best. When he emerged from the rubble and destroyed remnants of Amity Park, it was all that he could think of. Victory, but at what price? The town was gone, destroyed by the war that had raged for months on end. People departed, fled in the wake of destruction that the Phantom had brought. Whatever good he had done until now was forever forgotten; the things he had done would be his legacy now.

Casper High was leveled, destroyed in the first wave of battle that had lost Danny Fenton to his friends, his family, his world. The devastation had only spiraled out from that. Business, homes, anything that got in the way brought down by him or the enemy. It was so hard now to tell who was actually the enemy—the ghosts, the people.

The first exodus had taken nearly half of the townspeople with it, the second nearly the rest. The last had driven even his family and friends out.

A great loss, that. To his family, Danny Fenton was gone, maybe dead. To his friends, to Sam and Tucker and Jazz, he was… Devastating. Not the boy that had known, the misunderstood hero they had helped. He was a ghost. A malicious, destructive ghost.

He dropped to the ground, knelt next to the puddle of ectoplasm that was steaming even as it warmed from the cold it had once held. A gloved hand ran through it, eyes that were still green narrowed at the thin red it left. He stood, shaking his hand violently to make the ectoplasm fly from it.

He looked around seeing, not for the first time the result of his struggles to possess Amity Park. It was his haunt, it was his home. And he had defended it.

White glowed at his waist for a moment before fizzling out as he closed his eyes and let his shoulders droop. No; it was better this way. Amity Park was gone, Danny Fenton was gone. He, the Phantom, was all that remained.


	64. Lace 2

Lace

2

You would never think that a pair of Doc Martens would lead to something that might pass as a meaningful relationship. Not that our relationship has ever been anything other than meaningful, not that we're in a relationship. But whatever this is started with a pair of them, and a great many eyelets that needed to be laced.

There is nothing sexual about them; they are neither sensual nor give any implication of it. They are thick soled and would be clunky on anyone without the inherent grace that she has. The leather, fake though it is, is not soft nor is it supple. It's rather stiff except where it creases from the movement of her ankles.

There is nothing sexy or attractive about them.

Maybe it isn't the boots themselves. Maybe it's just a part of them, the start of it all. I've never thought of shoelaces as sensual… But there is something undeniably sensual in the act of unlacing her boots and easing them from her legs and feet.

I very nearly want to ask her to keep them on. I don't, instead I toss them somewhere to the side and behind me, and concentrate on making everything else as sensual as unlacing those laces.


	65. Bleeding Me Dry

Bleeding Me Dry

It wasn't like the last time she'd seen him, that broken look forever pasted on his face, eyes blank and sightless with the lie that she's told. He was alive, so very alive, the anger and violence and rage so damned potent that she could barely breathe, it was so thick in the air. Her hands were shaking, her body was shaking; there wasn't even an ounce of control in her as she threw herself forward into the dream.

"Danny, stop, please!" So shrill, her voice was, panicked and desperate. "Please don't do this."

It was all black and gray, full of shadow upon shadow except where the red painted it blood—down his arms, up his arms, his shirt and face. Her sight flickered for a moment, nausea rising in her throat as gray became white and shadow became light and the red seeped across the wall like a stain that would never come off. She closed her eyes against it but there was no way to escape it.

_Blood spattered across the walls like it had been flung._

"Oh god, Danny, please, I'm so sorry," she breathed. The metallic tang filled her nose and same did gag this time, dropping to her knees and retching against the copper-harsh flavor of blood. It was thick, there was so much, and the blade still moved.

_Pooled red around the bed, sliding along the linens in macabre handprints—childlike art gone grotesquely wrong._

He was so silent as he went about it. Every strike of the blade against his arm was screaming loud in her ears as Sam staggered to her feet to try and stop him. His wrists were slick, his hands cold, and she pressed her cheek to his. "Danny, Jesus, stop or you're going to die."

There wasn't answer, or at least not the one she wanted. Repentance for the act, misery and pain because of the hundreds of slashing, hacking wounds down his arms. He was so covered in blood it was miracle that he was still standing, and Sam tried to cling to him even as the knife came down again.

"Stop!" she cried again. Blade hit flesh and she almost fell to her knees.

_So easy to see glistening white bone beneath all of it, he'd cut so hard, so violently; sawed away like he never felt the pain._

She didn't try and stop the tears, didn't flinch at the warmth of the blood on her face when she tried to cover it with her hands. "Danny, please. I'm begging you. Please stop cutting yourself."

Her world paused, the dream halted in midsequence, and Sam could only feel the warm blood, the cold in her stomach, the empty ache in her chest.

His voice broke the silence like shattering glass. "But Sam, I'm not the one cutting me."

Her eyes flew open and she looked down. Her hands were coated in the thick red blood, the knife clenched within both of them as she forced it into him.

It fell with a clatter as she stumbled back, a scream rising in her throat. She never even tried to stop it as she fell headfirst into the waking world, her hands ice cold and her screams echoing through the house, just as they had done every night since Danny had been found three months before.


	66. Paper

Paper

This is the man, her conscience mocked. This is the man that you fell in love with. The man that you've spent half your life waiting for, for all the good that it's done you. The plain blue paper was almost innocent as she stared at it in her hand. As good an idea as it had been Sam was regretting her need to see him, the need to just be near him, all of it suddenly undone by the plain little paper.

And he had made no attempt to hide it from her sight. Whether that was a small mercy in itself, Sam had yet to decide. He couldn't have been ignorant as to the way that she felt about him. He simply couldn't. Not from the heated glances he knew that she was stealing in his direction. The pathetic way her fingers skimmed his skin whenever they made contact, in needful, lingering touches, nor the multitude of awkward conversations between them when she had had no choice but to let her voice trail off, for fear of uttering something truly incriminating.

No. Danny had to be aware. He had simply made no attempt to hide the news from her. Sam only wished that he had chosen a gentler form of rebuke.

To think, she'd nearly thought he might have understood. That he might have returned what she gave. She shook her head, eyes closing as her fingers clenched on the certificate before Sam dropped it as though it had burned her. She wanted nothing more than to be gone from there, far away from the small dorm room where she waited for him to return.

The very least he could've done was to invite her to the wedding. He owed her that much, at least. After all they had been through together, even if he refused to regard it as anything more than platonic. Did Tucker know, she wondered dully to herself, and for an instant, shame prickled at her insides as she contemplated the possibilities. Of course Tucker knew. Why else would he have encouraged her to take this trip down to see Danny? They had wanted her to find out this way, the two of them. It had all been carefully prearranged so the coward known as Daniel Fenton would not have to face her himself with the news.

If anyone had been around to see her cry, she might have tried to stop it. As it was she could barely believe it, the rest of her seemed to be so numb. She wasn't crying, not really, because Sam Manson didn't cry. Sometimes she got teary eyed, but never did she cry. Excepting that she couldn't deny the fact that her face was wet, her eyes were starting to ache as she held the worst of it back, that she was really, truly crying.

Which made it the worst possible moment for Danny to decide to make an entrance.

"S-Sam?" he stuttered, eyes widening, countenance visibly overcome by surprise by her very presence in his dorm, when she was supposed to be miles away at the other side of the country, the halfa's astonishment was magnifying tenfold when he realized that Sam was _crying_. "What are you doing here?" the half ghost questioned, his query sounding rougher than expected as it left his lips before he realized that he was bristling, a protective, possessive rage overcoming him. God help the bastard that had made her cry.

"Care explaining to me what _this_ is?" she demanded, her voice taking on a shrill, almost hysterical quality.

It was then that Danny finally noticed the crumpled blue sheet, held in Sam's hand with a vice like grip, inwardly swearing as his very blood froze in his veins. "It's not what you think," he pleaded. "I can explain."

_It's not what you think._ Her face fell as she understood he was only planning to give her a by wrote excuse, just like any other man with half a brain would have. "You don't have to explain anything, Danny," she said, not knowing how much her voice told him. "Least of all to me."

She dropped the marriage certificate, delicate blue fluttering a bit as it hit the desk, then stooped to grab up her duffel. If she hurried she might be able to make a return flight without having to wait. God knows she had the money to do it. This once, Sam wasn't going to begrudge herself the use of it. She swallowed once before glancing up at his blue eyes, then away, afraid of what she might see.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come," she told him. She pushed past before he could stop her, only pausing for a moment to whisper a broken, "Congratulations," before bolting for the stairwell.

"No," he growled, upon her in an instance, grabbing her wrist with reflexes honed by a thousand deadly encounters. She had almost forgotten what he was capable of. "Don't go. I'm not finished with you yet."

"But I am," she replied coldly, head held high in an almost regal fashion as she admonished him. "Unless you'd care to explain to me who the hell Henrietta Rice is, because you've somehow failed to mention her to me once."

"Sammy," his voice was meek, pleading, all hot blood leaving him. "Henrietta Rice doesn't exist. It's Danni. She was sick of running. She wanted a real life, and this was the only way I knew how to give it to her. I owed her that much, at least."

He's not married. Sam's head was spinning in a whirlwind of emotions; profound relief intermingled with annoyance and anger at herself for assuming the worst of Danny.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" she finally managed, reproach evident in her tone, her gaze unwillingly wandering to the cursed certificate lying abandoned on the floor, still unable to meet his blue eyes.

"I was going to tell you the next time I saw you," the halfa choked a laugh. "I just wasn't expecting it to be right now."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, fighting to keep herself from flushing with shame. "It was wrong of me to assume. You're right. This is the least of what Danni deserves. I was being stupid and childish."

"Apology accepted," Danny grinned broadly, the first genuine smile that Sam had seen from him since their reunion. "And for the record," the halfa laughed. "I probably would've freaked out more than you did just now if I found out that you were married without my knowledge."

"I've missed you so much," she confessed, drawing the dark haired man into a tight embrace, his scent making her feel safe and at home for the first time in months. "I had to come and see you."

"I've missed you too," he murmured, stroking her hair. Abruptly he pulled back, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "Now, if it isn't too much of an affliction on your morals, would you accompany this married man to dinner?"

xXx

Crossposted with Twisted Creampuff's permission. We wrote it together (because I threatened to beat her if she didn't) and she wrote the bulk. The prompt was mine.


	67. Love on the Rocks

Love on the Rocks

Danny watched in shocked disbelief as Sam down her fifth (or was it sixth?) drink, before reaching out and trying to gently snare the glass from her hands. The ice chinked against the sides when she refused to relinquish it, and Danny conceded before she tried to kick him. Again. Birthday girl or not, she still wore steel toes and he didn't really need bruises on top of his bruises.

"Sam, don't you think maybe you've had enough to drink?"

"No."

Her answer was short, sharp and frighteningly sober sounding. It completely triggered his self preservation instincts, too, which made Danny laugh faintly as he eased back from his prickly friend. She'd been like this for as long as he could remember. Well, at least since they'd graduated high school and the three of them, him, Sam and Tucker, had split apart for college. Tucker had disappeared into CalTech, Sam had fled south Penn State, and Danny had managed alright in Chicago. And every time in between that he'd seen her it had been an exercise in futility to get her to relax.

He watched as she flicked a finger at the bartender to order another, her face cool and confident. If he hadn't known better he'd never have guessed that she'd been drinking straight gin for the last hour. if he hadn't known better he might have tried convincing her gently, but he was afraid anything he said to her that way would be outside of the bounds of friendship, something he'd struggled for years to stay inside of.

Of course, seeing how quickly she was draining this newest increment of alcohol… Maybe he should reconsider. Surely she wouldn't hold it against him if he saved her from alcohol poisoning.

"You know you can talk to me, Sam, right?" he asked, his hand a subtle pressure at her waist. He tried hard to ignore how soft and smooth her skin felt, nor the fact that the gesture itself was more intimate than anything he'd allowed.

She glanced at him. "Shut up, Danny. Think of it as my last hurrah."

"Your last what?"

There was another glance as Sam sat back, gin and ice swirling inside of her glass as she looked at him. "I was thinking about something." He refrained from laughing, because the glazed look in her eyes clearly said she wasn't thinking currently. "I'm turning twenty-five, Danny."

He nodded. "Is that a bad thing?" questioned Danny carefully.

"Do you have any idea what I'm doing here?" she quizzed him.

"Ah… Right now you're drinking, _are_ drunk," he amended, "and you're picking a fight with me."

She hmm'd at him and he fought the desire to cringe. "Tucker told me I should come see you. That I should give it another try." He stared blankly at her and it was impossible to miss the way her eyes seem to go a little dead as he did. "Yeah," she murmured. "That's what I expected."

Danny tilted his head to the side, letting confusion slide across his face. "I don't understand, Sam."

"Rather thought you wouldn't," was her mumbled answer as she tipped the gin up and drained the glass. Her finger flicked for another. "I've decided that I should be a nun."

His jaw hit the floor. Almost literally, because her statement, plain as day and in as serious a voice as he'd ever heard from her, nearly knocked him off of his barstool with the meaning behind it. "Wha-at?" he gasped, wondering if he'd heard her correctly.

She turned to him, her skirt riding too high and showing an unhealthy amount of smooth, pale thigh than a woman who had apparently decided to pledge herself to the church should. "A nun. No drinking, no sex, no fun. I've thought about it, figure what the hell." She swiveled back around to her fresh drink while he tried to drag his tongue from where it had lodged inside of his throat.

Two sips later she was leaning heavily on the bar, her head low and her eyes closed, and Danny watched silently. After all, what could he say to her? _Good for you, Sam! So long as you're happy!_ Except that the thought of her wearing a nun's habit was also vaguely erotic and he clenched his legs together, willing himself to think of the ice in his water swimming across his groin. Better yet, mom and dad having sex. If that didn't do it, nothing would.

Apparently, nothing would.

"A nun?" he managed to choke out. "Why?"

"Because if you haven't made a move in ten years, I really don't think you're going to, no matter what Tucker tells me," she whispered quietly.

Oh.

He was lucky that he didn't depend on air as much as everyone else, or Danny might have finished dying as he sat in the little hole in the wall bar near his apartment in Chicago.

"It's not like I've ever really had a boyfriend. Or had sex. Or was really interested in other guys," she mumbled while he tried to process. Her hand slipped from her glass, gin still halfway up the ice and she rubbed her eyes as he watched. "I just wanted you. You don't want me. I can accept that. We'll always be friends. It'll be okay."

It was almost like she was talking to herself, but Danny didn't much care. He was gentle, so very gentle as he reached over and pulled her stool to him, one hand tight to the wooden seat, fingers brushing the skirt and flesh beneath it—and this time there were no mental reprimands to his libido at the fact that this was Sam he was touching, however unintentional it was—and the other hand was slipping around her waist to steady her.

"Sam," he said.

"It's not like much will be different, either. So what if you know? Tucker says you already knew." She gave a faint shrug and Danny swung her around to face him, and then he reached up and cupped her cheek to force her to look him in the eye.

"Sam."

"Danny? Oh," she breathed at how close he was.

"Sam." This time her name was soft, and he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers for a scant second, eyes watching her suddenly wide lavender gaze as he pulled back. "Sam?"

She smiled a little, though it was a bit confused and muddled. He thought, _alcohol_, and let it go as he reached for her again. This time she responded as much as he would have wished for since they were in high school. Her hands were suddenly tangling in his hair and he was trying to pull her across his lap, propriety and desire warring against each other as he tried to figure out what to do with the girl sitting in front of him. He settled for pulling back and resting his forehead against hers, breathing heavy and harsh and he was thankful for the late night atmosphere that kept regulars at home having already drunk their fill.

"How's that for a move?" he asked softly, and only got a smile and soft kiss in return.

"Hey, Danny?" she asked muzzily, barely waiting for his faint murmur of assent as his lips sought hers again. This kiss was shorter, sweeter, and he could feel her smiling faintly against his mouth, her hands snaking themselves down his stomach to play at his belt. "Can you kiss me like that again when I'm sober?"

Then her head tilted crazily to the left. Danny reared back for a moment, Sam still safe in his arms, before he realized she was only passed out.

She didn't move as he sighed into her hair and shifted her from her his lap to her barstool, and from there firmly into his arms. Ten years of waiting, he thought as he dug into his pocket, Sam balanced precariously in one arm, to pull out enough to cover her tab and his water to drop on the bar before dragging her out into the brisk Chicago air. Ten years of waiting; he could afford to wait until tomorrow, maybe tomorrow night, for her to sober up. It'd be worth it—he'd always known that.

But if Sam sober was anything like Sam drunk, he was pretty sure that he'd underestimated her.

xXx

Prompt of 'drunkenness' from Twisted Creampuff and request for Sam wanting to be a nun; title by me. Yes, I know it's a Sara Bareilles song (who is amazing, btw) but the title is sooo not from her song. It's from that naughty glass of gin on the rocks.


	68. Mauve

Mauve

**Excerpted from **_**Flight of the Albatross**_**, because I **_**am**_** working on it.**

"I've never seen anything like it," Danny told Sam as he floated above the clouds. He was somewhere near enough to a signal that he could pick her up on the cell phone, but even with his enhanced sight land was a distant smudge on the horizon.

The ship, the _Albatross II_, was somewhere below him, sliding along the mix of Caribbean blues and greens and the darker depths of the Atlantic as it headed away from Port of Spain and into Venezuelan waters. They'd spent a whole day there weathering out a storm at sea, the leeward side of the island protecting them as they were given… escorted shore leave was the best way Danny could put it. They really hadn't looked anything like what most of them were: American boys, ruffians who needed to be kept under watchful eye.

He steered his mind away from such negative thoughts as Sam spoke to him and his body drifted a little to the left on a sudden breeze.

"I wish I could be there. It must be amazing," she told him.

He could almost picture her laying back on her bed, phone to her ear as her free hand fiddled with her skirt or her shirt or a pen or one of any number of things. He knew her, he knew she would be; it was habit. She wasn't think of what she was saying, or to whom. Rather, she wasn't putting them together in her mind, merely speaking to him as she always had. It was wonderful in its own way, even if he was wishing that he wasn't here, that he'd never seen a sunset so beautiful.

He'd much rather be in dreary Amity Park with Sam Manson and trying to see stars in her eyes.

It was a fight for Danny not to sigh. He let himself drift a little lower, break the cloud cover to see the ocean beneath him clearly. There was the ship, complete with a few of his fellow delinquents fishing off the sides and the stern. He didn't want to be here. He hated it here. He hated that his parents didn't trust him enough. He hated that there really was no reason for them to. He hated that he had no other choice; somehow, having to choose between his own existence and staying in Amity didn't seem like much of a choice at all.

"I'm sorry." Sam's voice was a soft apology in his ear.

"What for?" asked Danny, his attention suddenly riveted to her pensive tone. He took himself back up above the clouds so that he was misted against the darkening sky.

The sound of her lip being worried between her teeth was obvious, and so was the way she was breathing—shallow and distressed, as if she were crying, or about to. "I didn't mean to make you think I didn't want you here. You know none of us wanted you to have to go."

"Oh, Sam," he murmured. "I never thought you did."

He heard Sam sniffle a little and his heart ached.

"I miss you guys," Danny told her, his voice gone soft and husky. "I miss _you_, Sam." He could all but hear the smile as it stretched her lips.

"I miss you, too," she whispered, and he was content to drift.

"Tell me what it looks like," she asked, and he couldn't find it in him to try and say no.

He shifted himself over in the air. If he's been at home he'd have been on his stomach staring at the world as she lay herself at his feet. "You know how sometimes people say, 'the ocean is blue,' and then think that that's all there is to it? It's not. It's a hundred colors, Sam. It's blue. Blue like the sky, blue like ice and the heart of fire. Blue like the sky turning black and the moon creeping out."

"There's greens, too. Leaf green, tree green, the color of Phantom's eyes. It looks like someone dumped a handful of jewels down and stirred them together knowing that this was what they'd get."

He heard her shift, heard her sigh.

"I can see land, but it's far away. Nothing but a shadow past the water and the air and the mist and clouds. It's like a mark against the horizon, where the sky and water meet. I can hardly tell where one begins and the other ends. It's blue and green and everything in between, and then there's a shadow that blurs it into paler blue, pinks, yellows, oranges and purples."

Sam sighed into the phone and Danny smiled a bit. "You're good at this," she whispered, and he bit his lip.

"Anything for you, Sam."

"Tell me more?"

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to clear his mind. "Night's coming in behind me now, Sam. Where it touches in front of me it turns the sky purple, lavender." His mouth quirked a little as he looked at the mixing colors in the atmosphere. "It's like your eyes; deep and endless and so… There's little threads of orange and red, but the red tries to be anything but."

"It's rose and pink and coral and mauve. And where it touches the lavender it makes me think of you, Sam. Pretty blushes and beautiful eyes," he breathed into the phone, knowing that her cheeks were flushing as he talked to her, that her eyes were closed and that she wanted to be as near him as he wanted to be near her.

"It beautiful here, Sam. Almost as beautiful as you."

xXx

Prompt from Twisted Creampuff. You guys should really be thanking her for getting me writing again.


	69. Surprises

Valerie Gray didn't like surprises

Surprises

Valerie Gray didn't like surprises. Between ghost fighting, and having to work two jobs to support her and her dad, the last thing she needed was a horrible, inconvenient surprise to sever her already fraying connection to sanity. Her life was already too chaotic to afford for change or accommodation. And at the rate that she was going, it didn't look as though any college would be willing to take her. The ghost hunter hated it. Especially when she knew that she was capable of so much more, when she knew that she was being hindered by no more than her own beliefs and desires.

Valerie Gray especially didn't like surprises when it included one Danny Phantom.

Somehow, though, it seemed like that sanity breaking surprise was just around the corner—literally.

She'd known for years how much Sam Manson and Tucker Foley supported and even, to an extent, helped him. No matter how often she tried to convince them otherwise it seemed like they would always turn a blind eye to the ghost and his ways, the destruction and damage he inflicted across Amity from one end to the other. It was only a miracle that no one had been killed yet. But, Valerie's eyes narrowed as she considered which weapon to use, Phantom's miracle was over. This was the last straw.

Not a hundred yards away on the edge of a roof Sam Manson was being pressed to the concrete by Danny Phantom as he kissed her with bruising force.

After all, this was not an opportunity that came around very often. Phantom was in range and vulnerable, preoccupied with glutting himself on Sam's lips, her skin, the pale column of her neck. Valerie fought the urge to vomit as the bile rose in her throat. The _sick bastard._

Sam had to be overshadowed. There was no other explanation for this. This was why Sam and Tucker always seemed to side with Phantom, despite his misdeeds. For all she knew, her friends had spent the past three years of their lives fighting the ghost's possession while Phantom used them as a means to his own ends. But _this_; this was taking things too far.

He was practically on top of the girl, and Sam was safe from falling with the way he had her laid down against the concrete. It would be safe to open fire, and it would be her pleasure. Without another thought or any hesitation Valerie lifted her wrist, letting the three energy cubes that laid compact against her arm rise up and charge as she sighted straight into Phantom's back. If Sam were overshadowed, this would be the surest way of ending it.

The energy hummed along the skin of her arm and Valerie smiled behind her mask as she let the shot go, streaking a violent pink path to Phantom's unprotected back. It hit, sending the ghost arching forward with a scream, and then he slipped from Sam's grasp to fall leaving the girl covered in bright red blood.

Valerie gritted her teeth as she kicked the back of her sled and darted down, determined to kill the ghost that had hurt her friend. As much blood as there had been—oh, she didn't even want to think of what he had done to Sam.

The last thing she had ever expected, was Sam's shriek of hysteria as she approached, accusing lavender eyes shining with tears as the Goth leaped from the rooftops, throwing herself at Valerie as though to throw her off her sky board, almost as though she was seeking revenge from the Red Hunter's protection.

"You," Sam screamed as the ghost hunter sought to restrain her, relieved that her friend hadn't fallen to her death. _"How could you?"_

"Phantom's dead, Sam," Valerie managed out as she lowered the lavender eyed girl to safety on the rooftops, fear for her friend creeping into every fiber of her being. She shouldn't still be acting this way, not when her captor had already been destroyed. "Why are you still being overshadowed?"

"Overshadowed," Sam repeated bitterly, as she collapsed to her knees. "Is that what you thought, _Valerie_?"

The ghost hunter's eyes widened in shock at Sam's knowledge of her identity. "How did you—"

It wasn't until then that Valerie realized that the blood covering her friend wasn't her own. Despite the fact that Sam's form had crumpled helplessly as she kneeled next to Phantom, her skin was unmarked, and far too perfect for her to be the donor of even a drop of the huge puddles of blood before them.

Valerie couldn't believe that she hadn't noticed it before, the way the puddles of deep red fluoresced spectral green, in a slowing, almost hypnotic pulse, each flicker of the ghostly ectoplasm swirled in the vital hemoglobin weaker than the last. She had never seen spilled blood behave this way before, whether human or ghostly.

"Look at him," Sam demanded grievously. "_Now_ do you realize what you've done?"

The ghost hunter lowered her gaze to regard her target for the first time, as swift, deadly realization assaulted her. She had been wrong to assume that the blackness of Phantom's normally white hair was a result of a combination of it being drenched in Sam's blood, and the darkness of the night. In fact, she had been wrong to assume _anything_ at all.

For between the two women, broken and wholly human, lay one Danny Fenton.

xXx

Round-robin with Twisted Creampuff. She rocks :D 


	70. Inquisition

Inquisition

_This isn't how I wanted it to be, Sam. I'm so sorry, but I had to do it._

She can remember it like it was yesterday, even though it wasn't. The feel of icy skin on her cheek as she tried to work her way up from sleep but so frighteningly unable to understand that it was more than a dream, that it real, that he was there and that he wasn't _there_ anymore. It hurts to think of it, more than it had to be there the day he was buried. It's killing her to remember it, but she can't bring herself not to. Not today, because today is different.

_It's the only way I could keep you safe, all of you, and you know they're going to come after you guys hard after yesterday._

Today is a six months since the beginning to inquisition. Six months since the GiW descended on Amity Park with death on their minds and intent on the capture of one Danny Phantom. Six months since the hunt had began, six months since Danny's already precarious balance was shoved horribly askew and butchered beneath the fanaticism of the government.

One month since she woke up to Jazz and Tucker, hysterical and trying to tell her he was gone.

_They'll leave you alone after this. I swear they will. If they don't, I'll… I'll deal with it. I promise you. And you know me, Sam. I keep my word._

She can remember the despairing laugh he gave her, remember wondering why he was so sad, except that it wasn't a dream and she knows very well why he sounded so broken. Even now, his voice loud inside her head, Sam could still appreciate the irony that Danny's suicide note had been written _after_ he was dead. So had the letters he'd given them, all three. And oh, how she'd hated them.

The threats he'd been given, the panic he'd felt, the resignation that there really was only one way to protect himself and his family and his friends. The despair that it wasn't really protecting them at all.

_I didn't tell them anything, you know that. But when you wake up, when they tell you what I've done… Please, Sam, please don't give them any more reason to go after any of you._

But he'd done it, and in the face of the GiW, their threats, their interrogations. He'd done it knowing what it would cost him. What it would cost her. Maybe—she still isn't sure if believing Tucker was the wisest thing. It might make it hurt more, though she isn't sure how that could be possible.

In truth, nothing has hurt the same since the day he left them. To see his parents decrying the GiW on national television, the bloodied letter Danny left telling of their threats and his fears… The proof that he'd killed himself to protect everyone, including the ghost that was protecting the town. None of them would ever know that he was protecting himself, too. They only saw the end result: the abuse of power, the desperate act of a boy barely sixteen.

_I'd give anything to do this differently, but I don't think there's any other way now. I'm not sure there ever was._

His death has done more for Danny Phantom than anything Danny's ever done while alive, and it's killing her. Today is so very different. Because the GiW has been officially disbanded, the agents who were involved in the Amity Park scandal are even now sitting in a federal courtroom answering for the things they've done to drive an innocent teenager to suicide.

She's seen him once since he died, and she wasn't even awake. That's why today is special, because without the presence of the GiW, with the currently supportive and sympathetic citizens, Phantom has returned. It's a statement in itself, she knows, and Sam likes to believe for the moment that Danny has planned it this way. That he's been laying low because it wasn't safe, and that he's only now come out because the GiW is standing a new inquisition, one that will destroy them as surely as they destroyed Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom both.

Tucker and Jazz have argued for a month when he would return, when they would see him, when he would come home. Sam always ignored it till now, because now, seeing him high in the sky wheeling freely, she knows that she should tell them the truth.

Danny Fenton is gone, only Phantom remains. For now.

_I miss you so much already, Sam. One day… One day this will be behind all of us. One day I'll see you again. Just not now. One day, though, I promise._


	71. Candy

Candy

"What are you doing?" Danny asked as he peered over Sam's shoulder.

She shifted to the side just enough to let him see. "Just some random thing Tucker sent me. We really need to get him a hobby."

Danny laughed as he read over the various instructions the meme was giving Sam. "Tucker has a hobby. It's anything that's vaguely electronic." He raised an eyebrow as he glanced at the fourth question. "Soap Opera name, huh?"

Sam shrugged, her shoulder brushing his. "Yeah. I just don't know what to put."

"It's not that hard," Danny replied. "Middle name, street you live on. We can go get the sign if it helps." He ducked when she swung a hand playfully at him.

"It's not that." She bit her lip for a moment. "It's just, which address? Which country?"

Danny snorted as he finger pecked 'Elizabeth from behind her helpfully. "You rich people and your multiple homes. Tell me what they are."

She flicked his fingers away from her keyboard. "I hate Elizabeth. At least you 'Liz' or I'll bite your fingers off." He waggled them at her and she ignored him as she typed the nickname out. "There's the summer house Mom bought in Florida. I don't know the street for sure, but I think it's Riviera."

"Liz Riviera. That sounds like a porn star."

"Danny!" Sam nearly shrieked as she threw a pencil at him. "Freaking pervert." He laughed at her. "They have a place in London. I really don't want to put Liverpool down as a potential last name, even for something as juvenile as this."

Danny tilted his head and then shook it. "It makes me think of stuffy clothes. Dunno why, just does. Anywhere else? Something exotic maybe?"

"Dad has a little apartment in Singapore. It was my Uncle Jerry's before he died. So it's still ours. I went there once. It's on Wajek Way."

"Liz Wajek. Sounds interesting enough," Danny proclaimed as he watched her type, again from over her shoulder. "Definitely makes it sound exotic."

"It's a malay candy, actually," Sam informed him with a smile.

"Really?" Danny asked, and when she nodded he bit her on her shoulder. It wasn't hard, but Sam squealed a noise between indignation and laughter as his tongue ran across her skin.

"Hmm," he finally said when he let her go leaving Sam to wipe at the now wet skin. "You are kind of sweet I suppose."

"Kind of?" she huffed at him as she dragged him close again to wipe her shoulder on his shirt. "I'm plenty sweet, Daniel Fenton."

"Well, consider where I tasted you at." he smirked at her. "The shoulder is hardly the best place to have a lick."


	72. Amusement

Amusement

In the end Danny's death was ruled a suicide. Despite the long, intricately detailed autopsy (that Danny sat through, watching from his invisible perch on top of one of the morgue's stainless steel cabinets) and three second opinions, _and_ the fact that his body was found on the outskirts of Amity Park where there were no buildings present, it was determined that his injuries were self inflicted and death was caused by a fall. A massive fall that apparently crushed half the bones in his body and drove him into the ground creating a crater two feet deep.

Even though Sam and Tucker were incredulous at first, Danny had taken the results without blinking. "Let's face it," he'd told them in dry amusement. "If my own parents missed it for three years while I lived under the same roof as them, how can it possibly surprise you that the general populace will believe something like this?"

They conceded the point rather quickly.

But the oddity of being dead and not-dead always amused him. Everyone he knew, and everyone he didn't (barring Sam and Tucker and Jazz, because they always knew the truth) thought he'd killed himself in a fit of teenaged emo driver angst. It didn't bother him in the least, and when pushed his friends and only knowledgeable family member had to admit that he didn't act like he had before he died.

Danny agreed wholeheartedly, because the Danny Fenton who'd been killed bya ghost had spent his days hiding from everyone for some reason or another. He didn't worry about hiding anymore. If a human saw him he was assumed to be the famed and feared Phantom of Amity Park (since he'd been Phantom when he died instantly on impact, his body only reverting to its human state after his death) and if a ghost saw him…

Well, they tended to run away.

Oh, there were some days where he felt like staying curled up in whichever attic he was currently seeking refuge in. he didn't have to eat, though he still could and sometimes even enjoyed it, but sleep was a necessity, and Sam and Tucker had offered him sanctuary in perpetuity. Jazz told him he was safer there than at home, since she was pretty sure that the attic had more ghost gadgets than the lab, and since all of them were 'broken' when he was alive… Well, Danny had an excellent imagination.

Really, things hadn't changed all that much from when he was alive. Boredom drove him to floating through the hallowed halls of Casper High within a month of his death, which provided an endless source of amusement. Oh, Sam and Tucker knew he was there. Even when they had no warning they knew when he'd been in the school. But no one else did, which made hallway conversations all the much more interesting.

Paulina was, as Sam had so often claimed, too shallow to get her boots wet were she to stand in a puddle of the girl. Star studied calculus and trigonometry in her spare time and apparently didn't want to live up to her mother's expectations of a perfect cheerleader daughter. Nathan already had an invitation to Julliard, and half the kids in the AV club were ringleaders of the spy cameras in the girl's locker room and showers. (Danny had to applaud their efforts, even as he warned Sam and condemned them to her wrath.) And Dash and Kwan were gay. For each other.

Certainly explained why they bullied so much; they had their own little secret to hide. (Danny didn't share that one, though Sam implied she knew all about the two jocks sometime during her graduation party a year later.)

But the best part of it was how often Sam and Tucker wound up in the guidance counselors office for grief counseling and the repeated recommendations for proper therapy.

He remembered Sam crying after he died, and Tucker's grief during her hysterical spate of tears. It lasted a few weeks; Danny knew that factually. But somewhere along the line the three of them had accepted his death as a part of their life. He was still here, wasn't he? And he was, just not the same as they were.

So it was understandable to Danny and to his best friends (when they weren't sitting through another session with a shrink or being told repeatedly that it wasn't healthy to bottle up their emotions) when they seemingly recovered over a long weekend, coming back to school cracking jokes and having a three way conversation. Especially when the third party was invisible and making sure not to be heard by prying ears.

He supposed that eventually they'd have to tell people, the family's if no one else. But for now, it was just amusing to watch them squirm.


	73. Fear

Fear

The muffled sound of footsteps walking up the stairs and down the hall went unheeded, and it was with little grace that Danny and Sam toppled to the floor at Jazz's ear splitting screech when she had opened the door and viewed the scene.

"What are you two doing?" Jazz was wide-eyed as she grasped the door's knob, then blanched at what she had just asked, "No, I don't want to know! Mom is going to kill you Danny!"

"Get out!" his head popped up from the other side of his bed where he and Sam had unceremoniously landed. Jazz had startled him badly enough that his powers had him and Sam in the air, then falling onto the ground before he could do anything to stop it, "God, Jazz, don't you ever knock?"

"I shouldn't have to!" she cried, hands over her eyes to avoid seeing what she thought she'd seen. "You could at least lock your door!"

Jazz was sure the mental image of her brother, partially naked on top of Sam, also equally semi-naked, would never leave her. And he was seventeen! He shouldn't be having sex. He shouldn't even be doing more than kissing as far as she was concerned.

"When Mom finds out—" The words died in Jazz's throat as a strong hand grabbed her wrist and tugged her hands from her face. His eyes weren't blue anymore, no, Danny's eyes were gone. Instead she was faced with the full fury of blinding green, a Danny pissed beyond recognition. She couldn't even understand Sam scrambling for her shirt and bra by the bed, her eyes riveted on her little brother.

His fingers flexed and Jazz thought fleetingly of all of the fighting that had given him such an iron grip. "You're not going to say anything to anyone, Jazz," he told her flatly.

"I—"

He squeezed harder and Jazz squirmed. "Danny, please…"

"No one, Jazz," he repeated. His voice echoed a little and his eyes blazed brighter. She felt heat around her throat and writhed as she realized it was ectofire licking her skin, warmer and warmer until she could taste the burning when she breathed in a single gasping breath.

"No one," she struggled to get out. "Tell no one."

He released her and Jazz found herself shoved out the door with it slamming behind her. There was no reassuring click of the lock but Jazz wasted no time stumbling back to her room, the door closing behind her. Jazz's lock was flipped, though she knew it would be no help. She was shaking. She knew that she would never go in Danny's room again without express permission.

It was so strange. She'd spent years being afraid for Danny. She never expected she would be afraid of him.


	74. Death By 1

Death By

1

Danny really wished he was living someone else's life on certain days. Today was one of them. Or rather, tonight. He'd already missed his curfew and he _knew_ his mother was looking for him since his cell phone had been ringing for the last hour. Every five minutes like clockwork, a joke that had passed being funny the first time Vlad had jumped him as he was trying to answer it in the middle of the… Chase? Fight?

He didn't even know what the fuck he was doing out here with Vlad. Half the time he was chasing the older half-ghost, the other half he was desperately trying to outrun, outfly and outwit the fruitloop.

The only blessing in disguise was the fact that Sam and Tucker both had been delivered safely home before Vlad showed up. Sam for the physics homework due tomorrow and Tucker because he had an early curfew for getting busted with his PDA in class. Again.

One of these days Tucker's parents were going to take it away.

Danny shuddered at the thought, dodging another half-assed shot from Vlad as he did. The mere thought of Tucker's imminent withdrawal was enough to thoroughly scare Danny.

"You're not paying attention, little badger."

Danny yelped in surprise and then pain as Vlad suddenly materialized in front of him and gave him a fist to the jaw. He hit the side of a building—commercial, thank god, because Danny didn't want to wake people up at this time of night just because Vlad felt like fucking with him. It hurt, yeah, and there was blood. But it wasn't the first time he'd ever bled so he tamped down the pain and went through the wall to try and escape.

He ducked behind a dumpster, using the shadow as cover as he slid one white-gloved hand back to his shoulder and then side to check the damage. He hissed a bit because ignoring the pain was one thing unless you were poking at the wound. The glove came back tinged green and red, something that was a bit worrying. Especially since he was pretty sure there was a piece of brick, maybe two, stuck there.

He heard footsteps up the alleyway and ducked further back. He needed to end this, but how was he supposed to do that? He couldn't take Vlad in a straight on fight, not like this. Sure he could probably stop Vlad dead in his tracks. But that was just the problem—when he said dead in his tracks, Danny meant dead.

In the two years since he'd stepped into that ghost portal and powered it up, he'd grown. A lot. But it was Vlad's own fault, he reasoned silently with himself. If Vlad didn't spend so much time tossing ghosts and mom domination plots his way, he might not have had to grow so much.

Bastard.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are." Vlad's sepulchral tones drifted up the alley and Danny clenched his jaw to lock the annoyed sigh in. "I do know you're here, Daniel. You can't hide forever."

"I shouldn't have to," he called out, digging his feet into the concrete beneath them, preparing himself to jump out and toss an ectoblast at the man.

"Ah," was all he heard as he darted out.

The blast left his fingers before Danny got a clear view of Vlad, but he wasn't worried. Two years had taught him a lot and he knew he'd aimed solidly. Vlad ducking out of the way wasn't unexpected, either. The older man had a preternatural sense of self-preservation that drove Danny insane at times like this. He already had another blast prepared to go off.

At least until he saw the person behind Vlad, straight in the line of fire of the ectoblast he'd already let fly.

"No!" he cried, his voice hoarse as it hit sending the fragile human body flying backwards into the brick of the building she'd been in front of. She hit and then bounced off, crumpling to the ground like a puppet with the strings cut.

Her name burst from his throat in a strangled cry. "Jazz!"

Vlad was nothing but an afterthought as Danny flew to his sister's side at top speed, a black and white blur down the dark alley. Pieces of brick and mortar bit into his knees as he dropped to them, reaching for his sister and pulling her close. "Oh, god, Jazz. Jazz!"

His control slipped as her head lolled back and when he saw her face the dark glowed white as he slipped back to human form. Warm human fingers brushed the long red strands of hair back from her face, but he already knew. There was no escaped it, no living person's head should be able to move the way hers had. No breathing person would have the gaping wound in their chest.

His throat worked convulsively at the charred edges of flesh, the faint scent of roasted meat and burnt fabric. She was dead. Oh god, she was dead. And he'd killed her. Danny had killed his own sister.

_Murdered. Murderer._

He lost the battle with his stomach and had only a moment to lay Jazz's body down as gently as he could before he stumbled on his knees a few feet away and lost the little bit of food he had in his stomach. His head swam as he heaved, the sour taste of vomit and bile turning his stomach even more till there was nothing left. He ached with it, his eyes watering, his head aching until he was done.

Grit dug into his palms. His fingers clenched so hard against the concrete that his nails cracked and bled, the skin broke under the pressure. _Murderer._ The word echoed in his mind.

"No," he whispered, throat raw and hoarse. "No. not Jazz. Not _anyone_."

His stomach rolled again, but Danny clenched his teeth tightly, forcing himself not to be sick. Dry heaves would only make him feel worse—if that was at all possible.

He didn't think it was.

And then clarity came. "Vlad." The name came out in a low growl. Danny dragged himself to his feet and turned, green energy bleeding from his eyes, radiating from his skin with the sudden, overwhelming fury that coursed through his entire being.

And there Vlad was, face slack with shock.

Danny leapt towards him.


	75. Conversation Hearts

Conversation Hearts

Nothing ever seemed to go right on Thursdays. She should have known, Sam mused as she finally pulled into the driveway. For it to be Thursday _and_ their anniversary was just too much. But beggars couldn't be choosers and Danny had said something about having plans for their evening when she called to tell him she was running behind.

She figured she was lucky that he was so understanding about it. Of course, that could be because he was always having things come up in undead ectoplasmic forms.

Whatever the reason, she had less than forty minutes to get showered and dressed for their date. And four years together was pretty important. Even if they were still young – twenty-two and twenty-three – given the things that they'd survived? It was just a matter of time before she asked him to marry her.

The water was hot enough to turn her pale skin pink as she stood under for longer than she needed. She couldn't help it and didn't want to try. Her entire body ached from spending too much time on her feet and she could only wish the water were hotter to hit the throbbing that pulsed in time with her heart deep in her bones. It was a good twenty minutes before she finally gave in to the inevitable. Having to wash hair and body under lukewarm spray wasn't comfortable, but by then she was starting to feel halfway human. She could live with lukewarm.

She loved wearing black, and she knew that Danny liked her in it too, but she pulled out a short red dress tucked to one end of her closet. She'd been saving it for months, what with red being his favorite color. She even had shoes to match it.

Fifteen minutes later she was dressed, stocking and heels on, short hair dried smooth and straight to frame her face, and red lipstick setting off her delicately sharp features. She looked pretty hot, if she said so herself. And she did.

Hot and late. The clock by her bed told her she was running a good ten minutes past, though she knew Danny could and would let himself in to relax while he waited for her. So finding her house dark was unexpected. Wait—

Dark except for the single lamp on in the living room. And no Danny to be found. Instead there was just a flat gray box and a handful of daisies lying next to it on her coffee table. Perplexed, Sam slid onto her couch and fingered the daisies carefully. Gerber's; she would get them a vase in a moment.

First she was going to check out the box.

It didn't appear to be suspicious. Not jewelry, though it looked like a necklace box. A necklace wouldn't rattle around the way this was. She flipped the lid up and stared at the white satin lined cavity and the dozens of heart candies staring back at her. She poked at one with a finger, and then another, and then Sam dumped the box over, spilling all of the conversation hearts out across her coffee table.

Patiently, desperately, she carefully turned each and every one right side up to read the message carefully engraved into them. _Marry me, marry me, marry me, marry me._ Her heart skipped a beat as she understood exactly what was happening.

Tears blurred her vision as she lifted her eyes to search the room, but she didn't have to look very far. Danny was standing on the other side of the coffee table, obviously having been there invisible to let her find his surprise, his request. Without hesitating he came around to her, kneeling as he lifted one hand to his, before dropping another heart bearing the same message across it in her palm, and then a simple diamond ring as well.

He looked at her, a hopeful smile on his face. "So what do you say, Sam?"


	76. I Know What You Did Last Night

**Rated M for blatant innuendo. Seriously. Sorry.**

I Know What You Did Last Night

Chances like this never happened very often. Danny knew it from experience. Between ghosts, two very nosy best friends, an even more nosy sister, and parents who were so brilliant that they had absolutely no social skills (and no concept of knocking or that locked doors meant privacy, which was par for the course in Danny's life) Danny had next to know opportunities for personal gratification. _But_, they were all gone now.

Jazz was in Boston enjoying their parents' company on her freshman orientation tour. Tucker was grounded, a not at all unfortunate disposition in Danny's current books. Sam was fretting over first week homework jitters. Danny imagine she was already well on her way to finishing their first senior English paper for Lancer as he relaxed.

Danny, on the other hand, had a computer full of naughtiness, a bottle of lotion, and a very comfy desk chair. And the ghost shield was on.

He'd spent the last week preparing for his four days of peaceful solitude, going through every website Tucker had jokingly (or seriously) sent him links to. He'd become quite learned at picking out women with petite frames, short dark hair, and absolutely no clips of the faces of their partners. Not that Danny was trying to substitute or anything. It was just… coincidence. Yeah, coincidence.

Choosing the first movie for his viewing pleasure took a few more minutes than Danny had planned on, but he settled the matter by flipping a coin several times. After that it was a simple matter of sitting back and enjoying himself. Or rather, the highly charged, enthusiasm ridden sexcapades taking up the full screen view on his widescreen monitor. The only thing that wasn't perfect was the lack of sound, but Danny figured that was better than having any since he didn't really care to fantasize about Sam begging for any of the crude demands the experienced porn stars were grunting and squealing.

The forty minute clip was half over before the first stirrings of imminent climax made itself known. By the twenty-eight minute mark Danny had himself well in hand (oh yes, he intended the pun) and was deep in a well wrought fantasy that had nothing to do with the virtually silent fucking onscreen and everything to do with the lithe girl he'd loved and lusted after for years.

In fact, he could almost imagine that she was right there, standing in his doorway. He could see her easily through half-slit eyes, head tilted back as he _finally_ finished what he set out to do, groaning her name as he came.

Finally. His breath sighed out of him as he relaxed, completely boneless. The clip was still playing on the monitor – the girl with short, dark hair was currently waggling herself at the camera, inviting whoever to dive back in – but Danny was quite content to ignore it for the moment. He'd turn it off when he could move again, maybe have another session of personal time later. That pleasant thought took all of his attention for the next five seconds until he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.

_Fuck._

It was probably normal for his life but that didn't make Danny feel any better about Sam standing there, slack jawed and wide-eyed in his doorway just staring at him. Here he was, bare-assed naked in front of his computer (which was still playing porn, god help him), with lotion and other things covering his hand and bits. And she was _still_ staring.

His mouth dropped open with Danny still fumbling for something to say. What came out sounded suspiciously like a zombie death rattle. The noise made Sam flinch back, pale face starting to heat up to match the furious red of Danny's. If she was as embarrassed as he was then there was a good chance that blush went down as far as his.

And it was getting worse by the second, because Danny's mind had suddenly begun working again after the post orgasmic brain death was kick started by imminent death from mortification. Questions screamed through him –

How long had she been here?

From the beginning? Or just to witness the very last?

And _oh fuck did she hear him say her name when he came???_

Even worse was the virtual impossibility of demanding an answer from her. Because not only had she just turned tail and fled, but Danny just couldn't figure out how to do it. 'So Sam, did you hear me saying your name as a finished an epic jack-session? Cause I was totally thinking of you while I did it.' Christ, she'd kill him the rest of the way. Or worse.

Actually, he couldn't think of worse right now.

xXx

"What is _wrong_ with you two?" Tucker demanded as he brandished the double-patty hamburger he'd sweet talked the lunch lady into making just for him. Truly, his love of all things meaty knew no bounds.

"Nothing is wrong," was Sam's too hasty high-pitched retort.

Danny simply focused on his lunch trying to pretend that he hadn't heard anything and that his pitiful excuse for a burger measured up to Tucker's double in any way. After all, this was the kind of answer that fell under the same heading of 'Thing You Can Never Ask Your Best Friend Who Is A Girl That You Lust After.' Though, knowing Tucker, he probably wouldn't be too perturbed by knowing that Sam had walked in on Danny doing what he'd been doing.

The snort from Tucker made him glance up to find his best friend staring at him pointedly and his other best friend red-faced as she glared at her salad. "Oh, it finally happened. You did, didn't you?"

"Huh?" It wasn't sophisticated but it did fit Danny's state of mind. Sam merely picked up her cafeteria issued spork and threatened Tucker with it.

"No, seriously," Tucker insisted as he fended off Sam's rabid attack.

"Seriously what?" Danny asked curiously, because no matter what Tucker came up with, there was no way it could match the truth.

"Weeell," Tucker drawled. "I could say you finally went on a date. Or maybe just kissed. Possibly had sex if you were under some strange love spell Ember's been practicing." Tucker ignored the death stares from both of his compatriots. "But I know that if any of that had happened you'd either have told me or you'd still be going at it like bunnies."

"I hate you, Tucker Foley. I'm going to kill you slowly. With a spoon. Death by spork is too good for you," Sam muttered, face flaming.

Danny worked on not swallowing his tongue as he seconded her.

"So, I figure Danny finally phased in at the wrong time. Admit it," Tucker instructed. "You finally walked in on her in the shower."

Danny thought the expression on Sam's face was really close to the one the night before when he'd given her such an unintentional show. In fact, he was pretty sure that his own matched it. And then he started to chuckle – what a perfect excuse.

"You know what, Tuck? That's exactly right," he told the other boy. And if the look Sam shot him just then was a little more than intrigued, he could remember that later. After all, he still had the house to himself for three more days.


	77. Death By 2

Death By

2

Rick Hernandez sat back in his chair as he carefully studied the remaining Fenton's. Telling a parent that their child was dead was never an easy thing. They were still reeling, much like the rest of Amity Park, in the aftermath of their daughter's death. To make it worse, their only other child was missing. And, if rick was to believe what he'd learned in the last three days, responsible for his sister's death.

He hated this. To think, he'd moved to Amity Park to get away from the high crime rate of strange as it sounded, ghosts were a daily part of life, but the darker side of crime rarely touched the residents outside of high school bullying. In fact, the last time a murder had occurred was before most of the children at Casper High had been born.

He sighed and wished again for a cigarette, but he'd quit two years, four months and sixteen days ago.

"I don't understand," Maddie Fenton whispered as she leaned into her husband. Her face was drawn, pinched and hollow with the pain and despair of her losses.

Rick leaned forward, fingers toying with the edge of Jasmine Fenton's file. "I have to admit, I'm at a loss myself," he confided to them both. "It's obvious that the wound was caused by a massive ectoblast, but I have evidence that the being who made it was human."

"It's not possible," Jack Fenton insisted dully. He was a hulking man and Rick thought that if he half tried he could be truly intimidating. Rick also knew that intimidation wasn't something that came naturally. If he were back in Chicago there would have been shouts, demands for the evidence he was citing.

Here there was just confusion and near unquestioned acceptance.

"Does this have anything to do with Danny?" Maddie suddenly asked. "Did the person who killed Jazz take him? Do you know?"

"I'm following every lead I can."

It was true, which was why Rick had spent the last hour finessing the bereft couple. Now all he had to do was wait, the two best friends were due to arrive anytime and then he could unveil the security tape that forensics had sworn to him wasn't tampered with. Given the crappy resolution, he chose to believe them. Even if what he and they had witnessed was… impossible. Just impossible. And he'd seen a lot of things in his time as a cop.

But he wasn't above priming them for it, especially since upon their opinion rested the veracity of the possibility.

"How well do you know Vlad Masters, Mr. Fenton?" he asked as casually as he could. He already knew that the question was going to raise eyebrows since Masters had no connection to the death or disappearance. Yet.

"We've been best friends since college," was the unhesitating reply. "Did you need him to review the evidence? He could, he has the… Well, everything. He can do it."

Rick gave a faint wince, trying to hide it. He hadn't expected that kind of offer, though he knew the two men were at least colleagues. "I'm afraid that's going to be impossible. He's been missing for three days."

The sharp look he received from both of the Fenton's was enough to make him grateful that the desk sergeant was escorting two teenagers to his office. He could see them through the open glass wall of his office and thanked the timing with a fervor that belied his atheism. "Ah, Mr. Foley and Miss Manson are here. I believe that we can resolve my question in the next few minutes."

They looked so young. He felt a tinge of guilt over what he was about to do, but guilt had no place to do when investigating murder. He throttled it back as the two sat in the remaining chairs as he inspected them both. The boy, Tucker Foley, was the town's resident technology guru. At least according to the background he'd collected. He was on the tall side with a wary look to his eyes that told Rick he was on the right track to bring the two in at this point.

And the girl, the only daughter and heiress of the Manson fortune. Not that most of Amity Park knew that since her parents were socialites. The grandmother still held the reins of the family business, even in her dotage, and rumor had it that Samantha Manson stood to inherit it all on her death. She was just as wary as the boy, but pale and too thin. His mother would have insisted on taking her home and feeding her up were she still alive, rest her soul.

He let the harmless detective face drop the second the door was closed. He had no time to spare and shocking the two into answers might get him more than trying to woo them like the parents. They were still children, children were easily intimidated, and Rick Hernandez was nothing like Jack Fenton.

"I'm going to put it to you straight. Jazz Fenton was killed by an ectoblast. And I have a security tape that says that ectoblast came from a human."

Ah, there it was. Both of them tensed and exchanged a wide-eyed stare.

"Someone had an ectogun?" the boy offered while the girl bit her lip. Rick frowned. The evasion was practiced, like they knew how to handle questions like this. Adults like him.

He narrowed his eyes. "We can just review the tape, then." That got an even stronger response, especially from the girl. Her large eyes filled with tears, though she didn't cry.

"He wouldn't do something like that. If you know anything about him you'd already know that."

He didn't say anything, just slid his eyes to the slim monitor on his desk as he turned it around to face his captive audience. "Please don't," Sam Manson whispered. He ignored it and pressed enter, starting the digital clip he had from forensics.

He already knew what they were seeing. It was grainy, black and white, and what they were watching took up only the lower left corner of the screen. But it showed Danny Phantom fighting with another ghost, the vaunted 'Wisconsin Ghost' who periodically came to Amity Park to attack the younger ghost. And it also showed Jasmine Fenton darting into the alley behind him, where Phantom couldn't see it.

"Oh god."

He felt for the Fenton's, he really did. Watching the ghost they'd been hunting for years kill their daughter was bad enough. But he knew that they were watching that same ghost become their son – the son that had been missing since the night their daughter died. He couldn't even begin to imagine how terrible that was. He didn't want to. It was bad enough he had to do this.

At least he had other answers. He was a good detective, it was no conceit to admit it. But once he'd seen the ghost become the human boy, it hadn't been hard to jump to the conclusion that the Wisconsin Ghost could be a creature of the same persuasion. A quick check with a few Wisconsin police agencies and he learned that Vlad Masters had gone missing about the same time as Danny Fenton, as Danny Phantom. And a quick comparison of the man and ghost gave him too many similarities to believe that Vlad Masters wasn't a ghost, too. Part ghost. Whatever they were.

When the clip ran out Rick observed the four people on the other side of his desk. Without even asking he knew that what he'd come to believe was entirely possible, and that the two teenagers knew about it.

"It was an accident," he said softly into the silence. "She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Danny Phantom – Danny Fenton – didn't intend to harm her."

It took a long time before anyone said anything after that, and then it was the girl. Her voice was harsh and she was finally crying, but she did demand an answer. "Where's Vlad?"

"The Wisconsin Ghost, you mean?" He had to be sure.

Foley glared at him, one hand holding Manson's. "Vlad Masters. But you already know that." There was no indecision in the statement.

Rick inclined his head. "Vlad Masters is missing. For three days. I have reason to believe that he's dead."


	78. Silence is the Rest

Silence is the Rest

"I can't believe Sam is getting married," Tucker murmured over the various conversations in the church. Danny didn't say anything, just sat there silently looking like death warmed over.

Tucker sighed. He'd been trying to make conversation all morning, but nothing was working. Not trying to talk about other things, not trying to talk about the impending wedding, not even trying to talk about Tucker's latest girlfriend. He'd expected something like this, but nowhere near this bad.

Though when Sam had announced Chad's proposal and her answer to it, Danny _had_ disappeared into the Ghost Zone for five days.

"I don't like him," Danny finally muttered.

"Who does?" was Tucker's flippant response. Easier to stay humorous when it wasn't the girl _he'd_ been in love with for seven years marrying someone else. But he did have to agree with Danny on that – no one liked Chad White except for Sam and Sam's parents. He was smarmy, too smooth, and reminded Tucker way too much of one Vlad Masters.

"I always thought it would be you up there with her when the time came," Tucker told Danny as he exhaled slowly. Danny looked away, giving Tucker an excellent view of a new set of bruises down the side of his neck.

He waited for a minute before somewhat impatiently asking, "You don't have anything to say about that?"

The other man shrugged and shifted restlessly. "It should be me," he finally said, as though saying it were worse than pulling teeth.

"Exactly," Tucker crowed quietly. "So what are you going to do?"

"Nothing," was the immediate answer.

Tucker frowned.

That wasn't the response he'd expected, certainly not the one he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear Danny say he was going to finally tell Sam how he felt, sweep her off her feet, elope and take Sam on that Italian tour honeymoon himself. Not for Danny to flatly deny any possibility of ruining years worth of waiting.

"Why the fuck not?" Tucker demanded hotly. He flushed and ducked low as his voice carried, but the music started up just then, the signal for all and sundry to settle down, shut up, and pay attention.

It was nice, as far as these things went. Tucker had only been to Jazz's the year before, and she'd only had two bridesmaids. This wasn't much different, except that Jazz was walking as the maid of honor instead of the bride. There was a moment of silence as the wedding party arranged themselves at the altar, and then the wedding march began. Tucker stood, all but dragging Danny up with him, and he watched in stoic silence as one best friend walked the aisle and the other best friend looked away.

It seemed an eternity till they sat again, and Tucker leaned close to Danny, hissing, "She wants you."

"She's marrying him."

"You never said anything, Danny. She didn't know." Tucker rested his chin in his hands in defeat. "Did you expect anything different?"

Danny shook his head. "I play clueless pretty fucking well," he said bitterly. "But I had to, Tuck. I _have_ to."

As much as Tucker wanted to argue he couldn't. Danny had told him once a long time ago that as long as Sam was safe, he would do anything. It looked like anything had finally come. When the priest finally asked for any reasons Sam shouldn't be wed he sat in silence as Danny held his peace.


	79. Just Walk Away

Just Walk Away

"Life isn't fair," he says suddenly as I brush back the dark hair from his forehead. I stay silent as I patiently blot the blood still welling from the ragged gash at the hairline, wondering if it needs stitches or not. His breath hisses out and I drop a kiss to his temple.

"It rarely is, Danny. Eventually we learn to live with it or die from disappointment," I tell him hoping that the philosophy of the statement won't be lost on him. I love him dearly, but he can be very literal at times.

This time he stays quiet, jaw clenched and lips pressed so tightly together that they're white. He knows what's coming so I don't give him any fake reassurance. It doesn't matter what I say, its peroxide and it's going to sting like fire from the seventh circle of hell on a wound this deep. I pour it on, catching the run off with a paper towel before blowing gently on the bubbling solution now pink and frothy.

"It'll stop burning in a minute," I tell him.

He smirks through the pain. "Yeah, and then you'll pour it on a few more times."

"I have to be thorough," is my immediate rejoinder. We go through this nearly every time I clean his battle wounds and it never seems to change all that much.

He just sighs and closes his oh so blue eyes missing the apologetic smile that's crossing my lips now. He's hurt and he's annoyed. Really annoyed, and hurt more than the cut I'm cleaning. This is worse than when Valerie found out that he was Phantom – and the drama that had followed that scored high on my scale of epic.

Of course, this whole mess scores as high as anything can possibly get. Ghosts, ghost portals and zones, being half ghost. How much more insane does it have to be before it goes too far? And how the people of Amity Park can miss the similarities between Danny Phantom and Danny Fenton… There just isn't any hope for the human race. I thought there was once but I'm ready to give up on them now.

Maybe they eat too much meat.

Or maybe the denizens of our fair township are more stupid than the average specimen of _homo sapiens sapiens_, possibly a side effect of the high level of ectoenergy that has pretty much engulfed Amity Park. That could explain a lot, I realize as I blot once again at the wound before reapplying the peroxide.

Danny's breath hisses out as I do it. I can see his fingers clenching around my blanket in an effort to control the pain. "I'm tired of this," he tells me.

I know he is. You can only fight so many times before you weary of the fight. Even if he still wants to protect his town I know he's so very tired of it. Fight, protect, be repudiated by those you seek to save. It's been this way for five years. I don't know why I expect better of people when they change so little in so long. But I do. I expect them to look at Danny, at Phantom, and realize that he's trying to help, not trying to harm.

The temptation to suggest a social experiment almost wins out, but I know that if Danny Phantom merely disappeared for any length of time he'd still be blamed for the damage he hadn't prevented. They would never admit that it was worse than when he fought and they would malign him for doing as they demanded. It would be better to suggest Danny just leave altogether and hope that the ghosts don't follow him.

But he can't. This is home. This is where his friends are, his family. Me.

I sigh a little. "I know you are, love. Do you want to quit? Just walk away?"

He stays silent for a long time now. I finish cleaning the cut and carefully bandage it. It probably should get real stitches, but I use butterfly closures instead. I paint it afterward with liquid bandage. He shifts when I do that; I know it stings worse than the peroxide. It smells like nail polish which makes me seriously doubt that it's not, but it works. Tomorrow morning when he has to present himself to his family at breakfast he'll be able to pat a few layers of foundation over it and pretend that there's nothing there.

I want to hold him close as he lies there, his head in my lap. He's shifted so that his arms are around me, fingers of one hand digging into the flesh of my thigh. When he finally speaks I wish that I'd turned the light off so that he can't see my face.

"Would it be such a bad thing? I could just stop, be normal." His voice is pleading, I stroke his hair gently out of habit more than anything else. "_We_ could be normal, Sam. Get married, have a family."

"What about the city?"

"Fuck them."

Alright, I can agree with that. I don't tell him so, just frown disapprovingly.

"What about the world? You're all that stands between humanity and the ghosts until your parents shut the portal down."

He looks away without answering. When he pulls himself upright I watch as he seems to hunch in on himself. I lay a hand on his back, then lean forward and press my forehead to warm skin. I love him so much, I hate to see him upset, hurting. I hate what being what he is does to him, to us. But I know how important it is to him in the end, and how important he is, to the city, the world.

He's the vanguard against the Ghost Zone. The only defense we have against the things like Pariah Dark and Vlad Plasmius and ectobeings even worse than they are. If he lays down the fight, there's no one to pick it up after him.

A chill slips down my spine as I recall a conversation I once had with Clockwork. The ancient Time Master had told me when I was fifteen, when Danny and I had finally begun dating, that one day I would have to balance my world against everyone else. I'd fretted for months, we'd broken up and gotten back together at least twice while I over thought it.

I'd actually convinced myself that it would never happen, or maybe that it already had and passed me by without notice.

I hate this. Life _isn't_ fair. But I've learned to live with it.

"I love you, Danny," I mumble against the salty skin of his shoulder. My lips press against it as I try not to cry. In the next minute I will either save the world or save myself. I take a ragged breath.

"I know you love me, too." I pause, breathe in, try to understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. The greater good. If I keep saying it enough maybe I'll believe in it. I choke back tears. "I need you, Danny. I do. But the world needs Danny Phantom more than I need you."

It's said, it's done. I've told him that I'd rather him keep fighting than marry him, have his children and make a family. He's not stupid, I'm sure I don't need to say it in so many words. When his back stiffens and he leans away from my touch I know that I don't.

"Do you really mean that, Sam?" he asks, his voice cool, guarded.

"Yes."

In a split second I feel the overwhelming despair of knowing that he's going to leave and most likely never come back again. Nothing like being told the woman you love and sort of just proposed to won't have any of it. I've hurt him so terribly, I don't even have the right to _think_ of asking forgiveness.

Then he sighs out and reaches a hand back, groping for mine until he's holding it tightly. "It won't always be like this," he promises fervently as I stare at him in confusion.

"Like what?" I can't help but stupidly ask.

He chuckles a little as he turns to me, his free hand gingerly touching the new wound on his head. "Like this. You forever patching me up, me forever fighting ghosts. I'll get them to shut the portal down eventually. And then after that I won't have to be Danny Phantom any longer."

I stare at him wonderingly as he leans forward to press a soft kiss first to my forehead and then to my lips.

"Maybe then we can be a normal couple."

I start to smile. "White picket fence and two-point-five kids?"

He laughs. "Yeah, but I vote that the one is the left half. Left is way better than right."

I laugh at that as I wonder. My world against the rest; I know I've done the right thing, that telling him to fight is the path he needs to take. And yet somehow my world is still intact. I make a mental note to find Clockwork as soon as I can sneak into the Ghost Zone. All knowing and practically omniscient he may be, but he's got a lot of explaining to do.

Until then, I'll be fine with arguing over children and fences and dogs versus cats.


	80. Death By 3

Death By

3

He started out in Canada. It was close and they spoke English; Danny figured it was the best place to start hiding in. That lasted about as long as it took for the first ghost to find him; then Danny panicked and ran again. He tried a few places, never more than a few weeks or months before culture shock hit him. He didn't speak German or Italian or French, and he didn't even want to try Eastern Europe or the Asian continent.

He had enough presence of mind to avoid England and Australia. Sam and Tucker were far from stupid and by now Danny figured someone had to have figured it out. After all, when he left so did Danny Phantom, and Amity Park couldn't be populated with nothing but idiots.

For all of that, he still wasn't sure how he wound up in Cape Town. He'd headed there from Germany, booking the flight on sheer luck and not really understanding what he was buying. He didn't care, he just wanted away from there and the ghosts he'd found. There was only so much he could do without being revealed, and Danny wasn't going to risk being found.

He was a murderer. There was no changing that. The best he could do was… survive.

But they spoke English there sometimes and his relative youth wasn't as obvious. He felt ancient and knew he looked older than he was. Stress, lack of food and decent sleep. He could list a dozen reasons why he was old before his time.

So he found a job. Found a small apartment that he could manage to afford. Found enough that he could pretend he was at peace. And a week became a month, and a month became a year, and before Danny knew it he'd made a home.

Then the ghosts came.

xXx

"This is such bullshit, Tucker," Sam groaned as he picked torn edges of her shirt away from the scrape on her side. "I'm going to kick your ass when I can move my shoulder again."

He frowned at her and the misshapen lump of muscle and tendon she was talking about. "You're not giving me a reason to put your shoulder back in socket, you know," he replied with an especially harsh poke.

She winced and growled at him. "Alright, I won't kick it. Hard."

"I feel so much better."

"Just get it fixed before the cops arrive," she said as she rolled her eyes. As Tucker continued carefully working she grew more and more impatient until she finally pushed him back with her good arm and, biting her lip against the pain, pulled her short off.

"Christ, Sam, I can't see you like this!" Tucker exclaimed.

"I have a bra on. Now get my shoulder fixed so we can leave."

It was a harsh order and Tucker frowned again as he ignored the scrape on her side, now free of all cloth, and grabbed her arm. He twisted it hard, then pulled and rotated it again. As strong as Sam was she still screamed, a sound which was drowned out by the incoming sirens. Hurriedly he tore her shirt along the rip until he had a long, ragged piece of cloth to tie her arm to her chest.

He pulled her to her feet, catching her as she staggered into him. "Come on, Sam, we have to go."

She nodded weakly. "I'm good, I'm alright, just point me the way I need to go."

It was his turn to roll his eyes. "Yeah. I'm carrying you." She complained as he used her good arm to pull her across his back, starting down an alley at a slow trot. "You're so heavy," he grunted as he tried the doors he found until he found one that wasn't locked.

"Danny wouldn't have complained," she muttered as they nearly fell into darkness.

Tucker snorted. "Yeah, you're right," was all he said as he flicked on his wrist light to see where they were. Some kind of storage for a bar, he figured. But it was late enough that the bar was closed and he felt safe enough slamming and locking the door before collapsing beside her.

"Well, it wasn't him," Tucker said as the door jiggled. If he hadn't done this a dozen or more times already he would have been worried, but no one ever questioned locked doors when there was no evidence of a disturbance. After all, the ghost had disintegrated when they'd finished it off, and Sam hadn't been dripping blood.

Crashing sounds and a few screams were hardly going to be concrete evidence when there was nothing else. Before long they'd be safe to leave and head back to the hotel Sam had booked them in.

"It could have been," she told him, her voice tired and heavy with disappointment. "But we can cross Langres off the map. Where's the next sighting?"

She had such a one track mind. Tucker shook his head as hers leaned against his shoulder. His PDA was in hand and he quickly called up the integrated search map he'd programmed. They'd been so many places already; Canada, Mexico, England and its surrounding areas. They'd been working their way through France for the better part of a month now, chasing a series of ghost sightings and fights from Belgium through Germany and now hitting yet another wall in France.

"We should head back to Amity Park. You need to recuperate and I think we both need a break. Tonight was full of stupid mistakes."

Light flickered across her hands and Tucker shifted to glare at her. "I'm serious, Sam. We're making rookie mistakes, and fuckups like these can kill us. We're not going to find him if we're dead."

At her thoughtful look Tucker gave Sam a light punch to her healthy shoulder. "Don't even think about it. We didn't make it this far to be that stupid. We'll take a break, we'll try again. I'll see about changing the search parameters to narrow sightings down."

At the muffled sob that was her only answer Tucker turned off the light and wrapped an arm around her. "We'll find him, Sam. I promise."

"I know we will. We're too stubborn not to."

He smiled at that because she was right. "Yeah, I know."


	81. Freedom Among Four Walls

Freedom Among Four Walls

He stared at the lines on the map in front of him. The stream was a failing point in the strategy he'd devised, but no matter how hard he willed it the thing wouldn't simply move itself to fit into his plans. Frustrated, Danny scrubbed his hand through his short hair before flipping the uncooperative map over and turning bleary eyes on one of his lieutenants.

"Has Tucker reported any success with the jetpacks?" he asked, almost afraid of the answer. War was one thing when personal ghost shields could prevent attack from below; it would be an entirely different thing if his army became airborne. He expected he'd lose people at every step of the way once that happened—but there really was no choice since the enemy could fly.

The man—boy really—shook his head. "Something about air flow, sir. He did say to tell you that he's made progress on the anti-matter engine; his team is looking at closing the fissure by the end of the year."

Now _that_ was good news, though Danny could wish that the end of the year was sooner. It was still just February; he didn't want to have to think about spending the next ten months fighting idiot ghosts who just did what they were told. At least they weren't inventive. If they had been at all, even the slightest hint of initiative, the war would have been over when he was sixteen instead of dragging on for nearly twenty years.

"I'm getting too old for this," he muttered as he turned the map back over again and glared once more at the stream.

"Sir?" his officer queried.

Danny waved a hand at him. "As you were, lieutenant," he said. He ran a finger down the line of the stream before motioning the man closer. "Tell everyone on the right flank to pull back behind the stream; I don't want to extend supply lines too far."

"Yes, sir," was the immediate response. "Since we're down so many ectoguns would you like me to redistribute the 3rd, sir?"

Danny gave a tired nod and didn't watch as the man left his office. There was a very real chance that they wouldn't win, a very real chance that he couldn't share with anyone. Not even Tucker, though Danny expected Tucker was intelligent enough to have long since figured that out. Between the two of them they tended to find a way to do the impossible.

He almost laughed at that. He'd been the commander of the resistance since he was seventeen years old; Tucker the tech developer since he was twenty. What a joke—leaders in a resistance that few people knew about, losing at it badly because they were simply human. God, if he could repeat whatever had made him what he was he'd risk doing it to the thousands of people under his command.

Anything to give them the same advantages that the ghosts had.

Oh, it wasn't to say that he didn't have a few ghosts working for him. With him, was more accurate. But there weren't enough of them, and too few humans regardless. Danny sighed again.

"How does it feel to know that your species is doomed?" The voice was soft and mocking. He tensed.

"I would hardly say they're doomed. Besides, my species is what creates ghosts. Without us they wouldn't exist."

Her voice hmm'd behind him. "And how do you explain me, Danny?"

He turned, eyes flashing green for a moment. "Don't talk to me like that," he growled at the opaque spirit. Violet eyes stared back at him, dark with malicious humor.

"Is that any way to talk to your precious Sam?" she demanded, the tilt of her lips vicious.

Danny bared his teeth, the dull ache in his chest a painful thing. "You're not a ghost," he said coldly. "You're a haunt, and that means you're not Sam."

A hand rose to her breast, her eyes widening in an attempt at hurt. "How can you say that?"

Without another word a sphere at green roiling energy leapt from his fingertips to the haunt. It flickered for a moment, a shriek rising from it before it dissipated. He cursed and wished that he had the time to sit down for a stiff drink, but he knew better. The haunt would reform in less than a day. He had to come up with something fast before the other side got wind of his plans.

He wasn't stupid enough to think that it hadn't been there the whole time. With another curse he reached for the phone shoved to the side, the map now a wrinkled thing as he yanked it towards him. He lifted it, automatically connecting to just the man he needed to speak with.

"It was back again," he said matter-of-factly. "I need something, anything, otherwise we're going to be overrun this time. I'm counting on you, Tuck."

No pressure, of course.


	82. Water

Water

"How's Tucker?" Sam asked as she settled back into her lounge chair, eyes watching Danny in the dull light of the lanterns.

Danny scooped up his neglected drink taking a long swig of the still icy beer before answering. "He's going to be hurting tomorrow. I got four aspirin and a jug of water into him before he passed out."

"Serves him right," Sam sniffed haughtily as she reclined, a superior smirk on her lips. "I told him to stay away from the tequila. Hey, bring me another one on your way over?"

He chuckled a little at her heartlessness before crouching to dig through the cooler and ice. The weekend was nothing short of a godsend as far as Danny was concerned. It went from being forced to spend his weekend home from college hunting ghosts to being rescued (however undignified that was) and dragged off to a little lake house in the middle of nowhere by Sam and Tucker.

It was a pretty good tradeoff in Danny's mind, one that he was not at all unhappy with, even if his mom was probably going to spend the next weekend he decided to visit home making pointed comments and glaring.

"Here, Sam," he said as he handed her the bottle. He wasn't fazed anymore by the fact that Sam had brought, of all things, blueberry flavored beer. She'd also brought apricot flavored, but she didn't like it so good as this one.

He'd mocked her judiciously over both calling them girl beers until she kicked him hard enough to split the skin on his shin. After that he'd been very careful not to so much as look cross-eyed at her fruity beer, though after a couple of days he didn't really notice it anymore.

"If we were back in Amity there would be fireworks or something, you know," he commented offhandedly as he watched the moonlight on the dark waters of the lake. There were only a few lights scattered across the deck leaving most of it in half light or full shadow. It made it surreal, even without the alcohol coursing through his body and the surprising company of only Sam. No Tucker to tease them, to bring his attraction to her roaring out for him to blush and stumble over himself or his words.

She made a half hearted agreement. "You'd think Memorial Day would be a bigger holiday, right? But mostly instead of remembering the people who've died for our freedom they drink beer and have wild parties on the beach."

He snorted and tipped his half-empty bottle at her. "Is that so different than what we're doing?"

She shook her head. "Not to them. But we're still fighting. It's easier to pretend it's just a holiday instead of thinking that maybe next Memorial Day, one of us will be one of those remembered." Her eyes slipped from his and Danny watched as she took another drink, the pale skin of her throat working as she swallowed.

"Yeah," he agreed noncommittally. It was easier, especially since he knew the odds were it would be him. He'd sure as hell die before he let something happen to his friends.

She sat up abruptly, fingers clenching around the neck of the bottle of blueberry beer. "I don't want to be serious right now," she said, annoyed. "I didn't kidnap you this weekend to get maudlin and angsty."

Danny chuckled. "You, maudlin? Not likely."

She flicked the fingers of her free hand at him and Danny just shrugged a little. "I have an idea," Sam announced, pulling herself to her feet and stretching. He glanced away, pretending not to watch. She continued on, oblivious to his sidelong stare.

"Let's go swimming."

He almost choked on his drink, the alcohol burning his nose for a moment before he swallowed it down without losing the mouthful. "I don't have a suit. You took me in the clothes I was wearing."

She tilted her head at him for a moment. "You probably didn't have one packed anyway."

He agreed with a nod of his head. "Yeah. But I don't want to swim in my boxers either. I'll be left in straight denim while they dry, and that chafes."

She giggled. "I can appreciate that sentiment. Tucker and I are in the same boat."

"But Tucker's not swimming," Danny pointed out.

She shrugged inelegantly. "No big. People go skinny dipping all the time. I promise not to look, if that's what you're worried about."

Danny could feel the heat rushing up his face, flushing him red right to his hairline. He was grateful that it was so dimly lit on the deck, otherwise she probably would have laughed at him. "Saaaam!"

"Danny!" she mocked him with a smile. "Come on, we can use the Jacuzzi. Don't worry, I don't bite. Much."

The rest of his beer was gulped down quickly. It was a halfhearted bid to try and pretend he wasn't completely insane for agreeing to climb into a small body of water, naked, with Sam. After all, if he was buzzed then he could at least pretend that the yes he was about to give her was innocent, not some perverse need to punish himself.

"Alright," he said, trying to sound as calm as she looked.

She took another drink as she sauntered over to the Jacuzzi and set her drink down, fiddling with dials. Danny saw the surface of the water ripple for a moment before it started roiling from the jets. She glanced at him and twirled her finger in the air. He gave her a faint smile as he turned away, heading back to the half empty cooler and digging out another drink.

The sound of her clothes hitting the wooden deck made him stiffen for a moment, his eyes closing and his head falling back as he breathed in deeply trying to calm himself. He was suddenly a bundle of nerves. _No idea why,_ he thought wryly as something else hit the floor.

Something whizzed by his head and his eyes darted open. Her bra was dangling from the cooler now, and his swallowed thickly as she laughed. There was a splash and a soft sigh. He almost dropped his beer.

"Come on in, Danny," she called. "The water's fine."

He turned around, eyes half lidded at the sight of her. Just knowing that she was naked in the water was almost enough for him to say something. After all, it was hardly going to get better than this. He could just…

He shook his head as she smiled and turned away leaving the pale swathe of her back visible, inky dark strands of her hair brushing her pale shoulders wetly.

Okay, so maybe it could get a little better.

"You know," Danny said to her as he set his drink down and pulled his shirt off and started unbuttoning his jeans as he toed his sneakers off, "if I had a bra I'd toss it past your head right now."

She laughed. "That's a mental image I didn't necessarily want or need to have."

He chuckled, fingers hooked on his boxers. This was it, once these joined the neat pile of clothes there wasn't any turning back. If he was realistic there wasn't any turning back already. He tried to joke nonchalantly as he stripped his boxers off and climbed into the Jacuzzi, beer in hand and nerves thrumming beneath his skin.

"You know, Tucker's drunk enough we could put your bra on him and he'd never know it."

Sam had obviously decided that it was safe to turn around, and turn she did with a wicked smile on her face. "I have my camera," she said delighted, settling back against the sculpted seat a few feet away. He almost lost his beer as his arm tingled, nearly going intangible.

Instead he glanced down at it and phased the lid off, taking another long drink as he tried figuring out how his night went from dragging one passed out best friend to bed to being naked in a Jacuzzi with the other. All in all, though, it was working out. It was way better than skinny dipping with Tucker he was sure.

"We're going to hell," he chuckled.

"Undoubtedly," she agreed blithely. "But what fun it will be on the way."

They lapsed into silence for a bit after that, Sam staring up at the stars and Danny attempting to let the heated water soothe him. He was tense—he'd been tense since he'd been roped into the ghost hunting with his parents. Sam naked and two feet away was just icing on that particular cake.

"This is relaxing," she said lazily after a while. He hmm'd a response and glanced at her. She caught the look and mildly demanded, "What?"

"Nothing," he grinned. "I was just thinking how none of my ex's would ever have done this."

She arched one dark brow and shifted so that she was leaning towards him. "Seriously?"

"Oh yeah," he replied. "If I'd asked any of them they probably would have looked at me like I'd grown another head."

"Maybe you're just not asking them the right way," Sam snickered at him as she took another long drink of her blueberry beer.

Danny slanted his eyes her way for a moment, picking out her pale skin through the darkness, the line where it met the water, and the silhouette of her body beneath it. "Maybe," he said to her, "I'm just not asking the right girl."

"As I recall, _I_ asked _you_," she told him tartly, but still smiling.

He just smiled.


	83. The Pickup Line

The Pickup Line

(Also known as 'How Tucker Got a Girlfriend.')

I really hate statistics.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't at MIT for anything other than learning higher math, but statistics is probably the most horrible math class on the planet. In just about any other form of the subject you have absolutes, every single variable represents a quantity that does not waver.

However, in statistics, most of that goes out the window. Estimates, guess work, things that change in ways numbers shouldn't.

Yeah, I hate it. The only good thing about it is the fact that I got to sit out in the quad trying to figure the stupid shit out. And it was springtime, which made for nice weather, blossoming plants all around, and a general sense of contentment. (Until I looked back down at my notes, at least, which was something I was trying desperately not to do.)

I'd been sitting there for at least an hour trying to figure the next 'formula' out, trying to unravel how it worked, when this guy strolled over to my little corner of sunshine and sat down next to me so casually I knew it had to be a pose. He wasn't the usual run of the mill MIT geek. Most of the guys there liked polo shirts, button downs, trousers and glasses. You know, nerd.

The girls? Not much better, but at least I knew a decent pair of jeans when I saw them and had nothing against t-shirts and flaunting my curves.

He had glasses, but that was about it when it came down to the geek comparison. He was t-shirt and jeans, right down to the tan boots poking out from under fraying hems. The medium green cotton complimented his dark skin tone, and he had this ridiculous red beret on at an angle, which made him look like a wannabe lecher.

In fact, the only thing that made me not question his presence on the MIT campus was the PDA in his hand which, to the casual observer, looked like your average device. One glance at the screen, however, told me he was just as home with the geeks as I was, because half of the user interface was written in Esperanto and the other half looked like bad puns written in higher math.

I was amused, it's my only defense for not telling him to fuck off in the first place.

"Hi, I'm Tucker," he tried to charm me. I smiled back and didn't give him my name. I'm a modern girl and nerd or not I wasn't just handing that out. "So do you come around here a lot?"

I looked over at him, practically rolling my eyes. A smirk spread at the corners of his lips. "You know," he said to me. "If I could rearrange the alphabet I'd put U and I together."

He looked so pleased with himself that I almost felt bad when the laughter exploded from my mouth at the lame pickup line. I coughed, trying to cover the outright laugh, turning it into a chuckle.

I'll give him this much, he was so full of himself that his smirk went to full smile. "Good one, huh?" he asked, still looking pleased.

I shook my head, amused and dismayed all at once. "Well," I told him. "If _I_ could rearrange it, I'd put F and U together."

Harsh, yeah, but still.

He just looked at me for a moment, still smiling. Then he burst out into a belly laugh. "That works for me."

I flushed red but his laughter was contagious and I couldn't believe I was suddenly laughing along with him. My sides hurt from it, but all the same I held my hand out to him. Sure he'd come across as an asshole, but he was an asshole with a sense of humor.

"My name's Annie. I like you."


	84. Stealing Cinderella

Stealing Cinderella

He didn't like Danny Fenton. There was no getting around that. The young man had no breeding, he had no standing in the social circles the Manson's were accustomed to, and he certainly had no prospects. It was hard to understand what his daughter saw in the boy, something that Jeremy had considered many times since he saw the first spark of attraction from his daughter for the young man standing in front of him now.

True, he was favored with good looks that complimented Sam. And he was bright, even though he rarely used the brain that he'd inherited from his mother and the oaf that passed for his father. He thought that might be one of the main rubs that made him dislike Danny Fenton so much. He had the ability to make something of himself. He just didn't do it.

"Thank you for seeing me," Danny said to him. Jeremy nodded once before he sat back in his chair, eying the youth who stood nervously in front of him.

Ten years and some things never seemed to change. If it weren't for the fact that Danny was no longer a scrawny five foot something Jeremy would have sworn the boy was fourteen again. No so; he'd just had his twenty-fourth birthday. Jeremy knew that intimately because it had been the four year anniversary for him finally asking Sam out.

Finally only in the sense that Jeremy had expected it to happen since they were fifteen.

The silence stretched until Jeremy's annoyance grew stronger than the sense of decorum he'd been raised with. With a casual tilt of his head he broke it. "You said it was important. What did you want to see me about?"

"It's, ah, about Sam. And me," Danny finally said.

The annoyance disappeared in a flash of gut wrenching nausea. Oh god, Jeremy thought. The stupid little boy had gotten his daughter pregnant. Just what he needed, a scandal in the family and this… this… There was no word Jeremy could come up with vile enough for Danny Fenton without using terms he much rather not use.

Before he could say anything Danny plowed on, either oblivious to the growing desire Jeremy had to strangle the man, or desperate to save his own skin.

"I know you don't like me, Mr. Manson," he blurted out. "I don't know exactly what I did to make you dislike me so much for so long, and whatever it is I'm sorry for it."

Jeremy waited as Danny breathed in heavily, eyes darting away before meeting his in a steady look that betrayed the way he could see the younger man's hands shaking.

"I was hoping you would give me permission to ask Sam to marry me."

Jeremy could only stare at Danny for a moment. "She's not pregnant, is she?" he finally asked, wondering if he really wanted an answer to that.

Danny blushed bright red. "Sam? Pregnant?" he croaked out. Then he let out a choked laugh. "No, no sir. She's not pregnant. We haven't, ah, done… that."

That was news to Jeremy. With all of the time they spent together—and he knew that they spent the night at each other's apartments, that was surprising. Either there was trouble in paradise (something that Danny's current request belied) or the boy had more self control than most young men of his age. He wasn't sure what to make of that.

He narrowed his eyes at Danny. "You want to marry my daughter?" Danny nodded. Jeremy laced his fingers together and leaned forward. "What makes you think you're good enough for her?"

"I'm… sorry?"

The way he said it made Jeremy pause. It wasn't an apology, but it was a tactful way of asking for clarification without being rude and demanding it. This was something he hadn't seen in the boy before. It was enough to make him decide to share his opinion. If there was one thing Jeremy Manson knew, it was exactly how this man did _not_ measure up to his daughter.

"I'll be brief," he said shortly. "You have no prospects. My daughter is accustomed to a certain level of comfort and, while she will certainly inherit the Manson fortune and responsibilities, I fail to see how you can match that."

The boy looked nonplussed where he stood. "Is that all?" he asked.

Jeremy would have snorted if it wasn't an unbecoming action. "Isn't that enough? She's too good for you."

"Mr. Manson, I'm sorry to have to point this out, but you don't really know much about me, do you?"

Jeremy pursed his lips. "What, pray tell, am I missing?"

"I work with my parents," was all Danny said.

"That's exactly what I mean."

Danny blinked at him before sighing and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "You don't know much about them either," he muttered before shifting a little. "Look, we might not be on the same level as you, but we're not exactly broke."

The tone made Jeremy lean back once more, against his will curious. True, in order to build the odd contraptions that seemed to fascinate the Fenton's they could hardly be poor. But he'd never seen them do anything besides waste money that came seemingly from nowhere and make little if any money for their attempts at controlling the ghost population in Amity Park.

"All right," Jeremy finally said. "I'm listening."

In the blink of an eye the youth in front of him changed from the nervous man asking for his daughter's hand to a self assured person who had no hesitation. "We're government contractors. We have millions of dollars worth of Department of Defense contracts for paranormal and weapons research. That doesn't include private party contracts concerning paranormal research as well."

If Danny had just told him that he were the infamous Phantom Jeremy wouldn't have been more surprised.

"_You people_ have government contracts?" he asked incredulously.

Danny grinned disarmingly. "Not something you hear every day, huh?" he said rhetorically. "But yes, we do. Things like that come along with being geniuses. Or didn't you know that?"

"No," was all Jeremy managed. But he supposed he should have considered it instead of detesting the Fenton's for more than a decade. Finally, "It's surprising."

Danny nodded. "It is. And I can appreciate your concern over my ability to provide for Sam. But it'd be nicer if your first concern was if I made her happy."

It took Jeremy aback. Not just the forthright way he said it, but the surety that made him feel small in Danny's eyes. There was reproof in the younger man that told him plainly that Danny thought little of Jeremy's first concerns for Sam.

He breathed out quickly, a harsh exhale that sounded as annoyed as he had been earlier. "And do you?" he grated, knowing that the quick yes he would receive would probably make him angry.

"I try," was another unexpected answer. "I'm not perfect, and neither is Sam, but I try to make her happy. And when I screw up I try to fix it."

Jeremy considered it for a second, realizing that this short conversation—probably the first real one they had ever had—was forcing him to revise the opinions he'd built on Danny Fenton since the boy had been fourteen. And he wasn't sure he liked the emerging awareness that he might have misjudged the young man. Badly.

"And you want my permission to ask her to marry you." It was a statement and the faint nod was enough that Jeremy knew Danny was agreeing instead of answering.

"Please," instead was all Danny said.

Pamela was going to be very put out with him for a very long time.


	85. Temporary Home 1

Temporary Home

1

"Come on," Amy hissed at her brother, pulling him along through the heavy pedestrian traffic.

After three days on the streets with the little she trusted from a few restaurant dumpsters she was ready to try pick pocketing again. She was hungry, but that was alright. It was Jason and the way he looked hollow around his eyes that made necessary. Not that she minded a little law breaking, especially when it would keep them together.

Stupid child services. Stupid case worker. She thought that separating them would get them adopted out. Amy knew better: no one wanted eleven year olds as new kids. The would be parents were all baby crazy, would rather have a drugged out crack baby with all of its problems than an eleven year old who'd spent a few years in the system.

And there was no way any of them would want twins.

"Amy, I'm tired. Can't we just sit down for a minute?" Jason pleaded.

She shook her head. "We need food," she told him, her hand sliding down to grip his, blue eyes wide. "We need money to get food."

"I don't wanna steal. It's wrong."

"I'll do it, Jay. You don't have to." Even if she was younger by twenty-eight minutes Amy would always volunteer. Jason was a good kid. Not like her.

A flash of purple caught her eye a few people ahead of them and she let her head turn to follow it. for a moment Amy thought that whatever instinct had always helped her take care of her brother had let her down. The lady, the girl, didn't look like anything much. Purple jacket, black skirt, leggings and boots. Short black hair. a ratty looking backpack.

She started to turn away before she looked closer. An orphan she might be but Amy had an appreciation for the finer things in life. She didn't know the difference between designers, but she knew money, and this girl had it. The jacket was tailored even though it was casual, the boots decidedly custom made because of the nearly too-thin legs they rose up over to the knee. The backpack was a lost cause, but the bracelet and earrings were real diamonds—cubic zirconium just couldn't mimic that fire. And the sunglasses looked just like the overpriced ones she saw on a picture of a movie star that morning when she tried to beg money from a newspaper and magazine vendor.

It was real wealth. So accustomed to having money that it was there without being obvious. Amy smiled and almost hugged Jason before nodding her head at the girl and dragging Jason along. All she needed was to get close and slip her hand into a pocket and _pray_ that there was some money there.

"Amy," Jason muttered worriedly. She ignored it and kept going until she was nearly even with the backpack.

Jason's fingers were clenched around hers. Amy ignored this, too, reaching out to that tailored jacket and the unguarded pocket there. For a moment she was afraid even her small hand wouldn't fit inside, but it did and nimble fingers felt a few slips of paper money there, closing around it to steal it out.

_Almost there_, she thought. Then slim fingers with surprising strength locked around her wrist.

_Oh, shit._

xXx

Sam ducked her head against the chill as she threaded her way between people. "Why did I think that New York was a good place to go to school?" she muttered to herself as she nearly ran someone over, sparing them a glance as they flipped her off and hurried on their way.

But it was grad school, only a couple more years, and if she passed on it Sam knew she'd probably regret it forever. So here she was much to her current annoyance. At least she didn't have to put up with her mother. She'd take sidewalks filled with rude, jaded New Yorkers over Pam Manson any day.

She paused for a moment to glance at her watch, huddling against a storefront to try and avoid getting run over. A quarter to ten. "Shit," she cursed. She was going to be late. She _hated_ being late, and especially for something related to class.

Without a second thought she plunged back into the crowd, now forcing her own path. Forget everyone else, if they wanted to jostle her she was going to give as good as she got.

The next three blocks were a blur as Sam rushed on praying that she could cover the last two in less than two minutes. Impossible, she knew it. Of course, she'd also said ghosts were impossible. Now her best friend was some sort of ghost hybrid. So impossible was just a sort of perspective.

She was half a block away, the building she needed in sight when she felt the tug at her pocket. Sam didn't even realize that she'd stopped until her hand was around a thin wrist as she stared at a small blond girl who was clinging to an equally small boy. The thin wrist was connected to a hand that was quite firmly in her pocket holding on to two tens she kept there for cabs making her frown as she stared at the girl.

"Please," was the plea from pale lips. "Please don't make us go back."

_Well hell._


	86. Naturally

Title

"Dr. Lambert said there was nothing left to do," Sam said softly into the phone.

"Oh, Sam, I'm sorry," Danny told her as he searched for his shoes. "I can come over if you want," he offered.

She sniffled and he winced. "Would you? I know you said you would, but I didn't actually think I'd be this bad."

As sad as the situation was, Danny couldn't help but smile a little. After two years of trying to fight the cancer, he didn't know how Sam would ever think she'd be alright when it came time for the end. Maybe most people wouldn't deal well with having a beloved pet euthanized, but Sam's loved her dog like most people loved their kids. He'd known from the moment Rogue's vet had said terminal that this day would come.

She wasn't the kind of person who would let her dog suffer just because she couldn't bear to put the animal to sleep.

"I would never leave you to do something like this alone, Sam, and you know that," he said matter of factly. "It's going to take me about half an hour to cross town. Tell me again why you have to live in Manhattan?"

"Because the apartments are nicer," she replied. She sniffed again and Danny sighed a little. "You're going to have to watch out for the P.E.T.A. people, too. They're picketing downstairs."

He pocketed his wallet and slipped out his door, closing it behind him as he frowned. "Are you serious?"

He could imagine her nodding miserably right now. "They followed us home from the vet's office. After they threw red paint on me."

He cursed violently. "What assholes. Don't they know you're one of their biggest contributors?"

"I doubt they care," was her acerbic answer. "These guys are zealots. They'd rather her die 'naturally.' As if there were anything natural about cancer."

He took the stairs running not even waiting for the elevator. "I could stop and pick up some green paint and throw it on them for you," he offered.

She laughed weakly. "How chivalrous of you. No, it's fine. I'd rather just get this over with. It'll better for Rogue."

"Alright, Sam. I'm on my way."

xXx

No, this isn't supposed to be deeply meaningful. I'm just peeved that my parents and one of my sisters would rather let a dog who should weigh 95 pounds and because of terminal cancer only weighed 42 pounds die 'naturally' because they think euthanasia is wrong. Consider this semi-political diatribe.

R.I.P Rogue, 4/9/10.


	87. Temporary Home 2

Temporary Home

2

"And then they decided that separating us was a good idea because everyone knows that people really want to adopt eleven year olds instead of babies and I just couldn't let that happen so I snuck into the boys side of the home and got Jason and we ran away so we could stay together but that was three days ago and Jason was hungry and we needed food so I thought that if I stole the money from someone who had it to spare it would be alright because we needed it and that's when you caught me and please, please, _please_ don't make us go back there."

Sam could only stare at the girl nonplussed. "Do you breathe when you speak?" she asked teasingly. Certainly the girl, _Amy,_ she corrected herself, hadn't taken more than one or two during her entire story. But Sam wasn't going to blame her for that. The poor thing seemed utterly desperate to try and convince Sam to not send them packing or call the police.

"I just want to stay with Jason," Amy said helplessly looking down.

Sam sighed softly as she glanced at Amy's twin brother. He was content to dig into the meal she'd bought them, though she was pretty sure neither kid knew what to make of her calling to cancel her appointment with her professor and then taking them to a decent restaurant and feeding them. They probably thought she was fattening them up for the kill. Or at least Amy probably thought that. Jason was a lot more innocent than his sister. He kind of reminded Sam of Danny, though the twins were blond instead of raven haired.

"Eat your food, Amy," Sam told her gently. "You haven't had a decent meal in three days. You have to keep your strength up." The pointed glance at Jason made Amy flush a little as she finally picked up her fork and dug in to her plate of macaroni.

This was a pretty dilemma, Sam decided. She couldn't in good conscience just send the kids back into child services. The desperation Amy had at keeping them together wasn't alone, because she could read the same fear in Jason's eyes with no effort at all. And if Sam believed that separating siblings was wrong, she could only feel more intensely about it at the thought of separating twins. Siblings were close enough—twins were even closer.

With no small amount of hesitation Sam finally asked the only question that Amy had not answered. Indeed, the girl had never even brought it up.

"Amy, where are your parents?"

As expected Jason continued to eat his chicken, paying no attention to them, but Amy looked up with those pale blue eyes. "Mom died in a car accident. We don't have a dad."

Oh. Somehow that made it feel even worse. A single mom to twins, and then just gone. How sad, how painful for them it must have been. In an instant Sam's heart went out to them without a second thought. Her decision was made.

"How would you guys like to try living with me?"

xXx

"This is most unusual."

"I can appreciate that, Mrs. Carson," Sam told the social worker in charge of Amy and Jason's case.

She shuffled through the two folders on her desk, eyes shrewd as Sam watched. "Amy picked your pocket, you said?"

"Tried to," Sam corrected. "I'm pretty sure they were starving. She was desperate."

The displeased tilt to the much older woman's lips made Sam want to bare her teeth. "So I can add criminal mischief and petty thievery to her file."

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Sam told her with a frown of her own. "As I said, I'd like to foster them until adoption proceedings can be approved."

Mrs. Carson laid the files down and closed them with a papery thump. "I'm sorry to say that I don't believe you meet the qualifications for adoption or fostering, Miss Manson."

Now Sam was starting to get angry, something that would have made the older woman quake if she knew Sam at all. Luckily for Sam the old bat had no idea who she was dealing with, and Sam was more than ready to pull out the big guns. "And why would that be?"

"You're young, single, and a student. I don't see how any of these would contribute to a healthy or stable environment for one child, much less two. Especially when one of them already has a burgeoning career as a criminal."

Now Sam did bare her teeth, barely disguised as a vicious smile. "I see you weren't listening when I said who I was. My name is Samantha Manson. Of the Long Island Manson's." She took petty pleasure in the way the older woman's face paled a little. "I see you know my family by reputation. Then you can surely appreciate when I tell you I'm attending graduate school of my own choice, not by necessity."

"Of course not, if you're one of those Manson's," Mrs. Carson said through clenched teeth.

"And with my maternal grandmother's death two years ago I have a controlling interest in the family business as well as a very healthy inheritance that I'm sure I couldn't spend in two lifetimes. Surely my single status could be overlooked considering the lifestyle and opportunities I could give Amy and Jason," Sam said pleasantly in a voice that could cut steel.

"There's still the matter of your age," the social worker pointed out.

Again Sam's teeth bared in that dangerous smile. "I'm twenty-four. If I were married and looking to adopt I doubt we would be having this conversation."

"No, of course not," was the unwilling agreement.

"And the legal requirements can be taken care of while we're working on submitting the adoption petition," Sam continued with a smug smile. Money surely greased wheels in ways that nothing else could, and she was willing to use it now as she never had before except when Danny needed her special brand of persuasion.

The frown Mrs. Carson gave her made Sam smile even wider.

"I think it would be wise if they were to come and live with me now, anyway," Sam continued, the voice of reason in the face of a petty bureaucrat. "I'm sure Amy would convince Jason to run away again if she thought there was even the slightest chance that someone would attempt to supersede my desire to adopt."

"I expect you're right about that," was the grudging acceptance Sam was finally getting.

"Then it's settled. They'll come home with me."


	88. Hot Mama

Hot Mama

She wasn't the type of woman to ever be overly concerned with appearances, but somehow Sam couldn't help but feel a little dismayed as she stared at the pair of jeans on the bed. The fact that they were thirty years old didn't seem as important as the fact that she couldn't fit into them anymore. Not that any woman who was forty-seven could manage to fit into the same clothes she wore when she was eighteen, but still.

With a sigh she turned to the mirror taking critical stock of her reflection. Her hair was still short, but shot through with gray. There were wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth, most noticeable when she smiled. She'd smiled a lot in the twenty-five years she'd been married. Bras were no longer a choice, but a necessity, her hips were too wide and her stomach no longer perfectly flat.

There were reasons for it all, but it didn't mean much to her as she stared at herself unhappily.

"Sam?"

She sighed. "I'm in here, Danny," she called as she ran a hand over her face.

His head peeked around the doorway. "What're you done, hon?"

"Do I look old to you?"

He frowned and his eyebrow shot up as he came around the door and headed straight to her. "Honey, what are you talking about?"

If she didn't love him so much she'd probably smack him for that. "I can't fit into my jeans from high school anymore."

He gaped at her. "Did you honestly just say that, Sam?"

"Danny!"

"Sam!" He chuckled a little and turned her back to the mirror, his arms sliding around her as he rested his head on her shoulder. She couldn't help but notice the same smile lines on his face, matching gray hair. and he certainly wasn't in the same shape he'd been at eighteen. But she couldn't help but think he still maintained a better physique than her just because he still dealt with ghosts on occasion.

"Look at me," she told him softly. "I look _old_."

"You look beautiful, the same as you always do," he said honestly.

"Wrinkles, stretch marks, sagging skin, gray hair," was her response.

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "Fact of life, my love. And besides, I did most of that to you anyway." She shot him a disbelieving glare via the mirror.

"No, really," he said. "You have wrinkles. I shouldn't have made you smile so much. Better off being less than blissful if you save your skin, right?" he said sagely. "And the stretch marks and sagging skin." He gave her a lecherous grin. "You were just so enticing. Though I would have stopped at three kids. I completely blame you for Sara. It was that dress you wore to our ten year reunion."

Sam smiled, the crows feet at her eyes bunching together. She remembered that dress. Short, tight, red, and with the shameless aim at making Danny spend the night lusting after her. Good times.

"And the gray hair?" she asked, wondering what his reasoning for that was.

He flushed a little. "Actually, I'd rather blame the twins for that one. Jack and Theo were just a damned handful." He touched a hand to his own temples, emphasizing his own healthy spattering of silver. "They did that to me, too."

"Point taken," she acceded. "But I still look old."

He hmm'd, his eyes roaming over her reflection in a way that made her flush. "You're still completely hot, Sam." She rolled her eyes and then gave a startled giggle as he pulled her back tightly against him so that she could feel how hot he thought she was.

"Proof enough?" he asked with a smile. "Hey, Lil's moved out, the twins are gone till the end of the semester, and Annie is spending the weekend in Boston with Jazz."

"Oh, no, Danny," Sam started to protest as he pressed a heated kiss to her throat.

He grinned as he turned her away from the mirror and kissed her firmly. "What say we toss the jeans and I show you just how hot I still think you are?"

Well, when he put it that way…


	89. Temporary Home 3

Temporary Home

3

Jason was pretty sure that this was the best thing to ever happen to him and Amy. Even better than anything Mom had done before she died, except for her being the best mom in the world. It wasn't her fault that she wasn't rich. She'd always tried to do everything she could for them, but there was only so much a single mom could do with two kids to take care of. He might only be eleven, but he wasn't stupid. Even if he wasn't as… practical as Amy was when it came to their life.

Sam, as their purported adoptive mother insisted she be called, had made good on the promise she made over lunch in the fancy restaurant. An hour long closed door meeting with Mrs. Carson had ended with her collecting them and their meager belongings and taking them to the apartment she owned across from Central Park.

Owned. He couldn't believe that she owned this place. Amy was right, the lady she'd tried to pick pocket was rich. There were four bedrooms, three full bathrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen that Mom would have loved, and a balcony that was big enough to camp out on.

And that meant they had their own rooms. They'd _never_ had their own rooms. It was completely crazy.

"If I'd known this was what would happen for trying to steal I might have tried it sooner," Amy whispered from where they huddled together on the giant bed in his room. The thought made him shiver. His room. It was just so cool.

But he still tried to dig up a frown for Amy. "Stealing's bad, Amy. You know that."

She grinned at him a little. "Yeah. But still."

"You're not going to have steal anymore," came Sam's voice from the open doorway. "And I hope I never catch you trying to do something like that or you'll be in more trouble than you can imagine."

Jason glanced at Amy feeling a little smug as his twin flushed red. Sam came in and sat down on the end of the bed pulling her bare feet up to tuck them underneath her as she sat.

"I'm pretty sure it'll all be fine with the adoption, but besides that we're going to be spending the time between now and then getting to know each other." She gave them both a once over. "I think we'll be fine. Especially after I get you guys taken care of."

"Taken care of?" Jason echoed curiously, ignoring the way Amy's elbow dug into his side none too gently.

The smile Sam gave them both at his question made him feel warm inside. Safe, something he hadn't felt since the police had taken them away after their mom's death.

"You guys need clothes. Real clothes, not the crap that the state gave you." Jason giggled when she said crap, but he stifled it when Sam winked at him, wondering how they'd gotten this lucky. "And other things, too. Clothes, books, some fun things. Toys, games. That kind of thing," she explained.

Toys. Jason's heart sped up. He hadn't had many toys since he was eight.

"And there's the school thing." His elation began to subside in the face of that. School, yuck. Amy liked it, but he just couldn't bear the crappy teachers at school. "I'm going to get you a tutor for the rest of the school year. By the start of school next year we'll be living in Amity Park."

"Isn't that where all the ghosts are?" Amy piped up, her eyes round at the thought. Jason felt her shiver next to him and suddenly felt all of the twenty-eight minutes he was older by.

"That's where I really live," Sam explained. "I'm just living here while I go to graduate school. I'm almost done, though, so I'll finish out the semester and be done with it. You'll like it there. We have Danny Phantom."

"Oh _cool_," Jason exclaimed. "He's my favorite superhero." He didn't understand the amusement behind her suddenly huge smile, but he didn't think of it in the excitement of knowing he was going to live where Danny Phantom lived. Or un-lived.

"But we can talk about all of that tomorrow," Sam said. "It's getting late and you guys should get to sleep. You're going to have a very busy day tomorrow."

When Sam got up to leave Amy followed leaving Jason alone. With a quick glance at the door he found the bag with his clothes from the children's home and dug out his pajamas, changing quickly before crawling into his giant bed. He shivered again at the thought. _His_ bed. It was so unreal.

He reached out to turn off the light next to the bed, pausing only when a shadow fell from the doorway. It was Sam again and he gave her a hesitant smile.

"Goodnight, Jason," she said with a smile of her own.

"Night, Sam," he said. Then she was gone. He could hear her telling Amy goodnight as he turned the light off and snuggled down under the blanket.

He thought he might have trouble sleeping, but his eyes were immediately heavy. He was almost out when he heard footsteps again, only rousing enough to open his eyes when a weight dipped the side of the bed. It was Amy, crawling under the covers to lie next to him.

"How'd we get this lucky?" she asked him sleepily as she curled into a ball, eyes blearily looking at him.

He shrugged a little, his twin's hand finding his own. "Mom must be watching out for us."

"Yeah, she must be," Amy agreed.

He nodded. "Night, Amy." He was asleep before she ever replied.

xXx

I'm also working on the next installment of the Home for the Holidays series, just so you know. I expect to finish sometime tonight if I'm lucky.


	90. Cooties

Cooties

She was running down the alley, boots hitting the pavement loudly as she ducked to avoid some cardboard jutting out from a dumpster. Another quick lunge let her avoid a puddle of goo as she pounded pavement further into the recesses. The ghost was coming, she couldn't possibly have outrun it. Not in these shoes, not in this heat, and certainly not when the ghost was after her specifically.

She was rewarded moments later by the freezing mass of ectoplasm that flew out of the wall and bowled her over. Sam cried out as she hit the asphalt, but she scrambled to her feet, already trying to escape.

"Oh no, dearie," the hag cooed at her. "You've been a bad girl. Bad girls need to be punished."

Sam shrieked again as claw-like fingers grabbed at her, catching on some of her hair and reeling her back towards the ghost. "It's not the 18-fucking-90's lady," Sam insisted, writhing and grimacing as hair came out at the roots. She stumbled forward. "And I wear a lot more than Paulina. Can't you go punish her?"

The hag cackled. There was no other word for it, it was a true cackle. "That would be too easy, dear. And besides, you cavort around with that Phantom character. It's like a two-for-one sale at the punishment store!"

There were so many things wrong with that statement, but she didn't hang around to point them out, just darted further along the alley. "Oh no," she moaned as she came to a dead end far too quickly. "Oh, god, no." Sam turned, her back pressing into the concrete wall as she waited for the inevitable.

The hag was definitely on her way, the air was singing with tension and Sam could see her breath now, an icy exhale. Moments later the hag appeared, eyes glowing with excitement.

"It's always more ladylike to accept the inevitable," the hag instructed her as she reached out for Sam, the nails of her fingers lengthening and sharpening. "This won't hurt too much."

In the split second before her hands grabbed Sam, Sam's eyes flashed from violet to blinding green. "Well, not for me," she replied in a far too masculine voice. A heart beat later and Danny Phantom burst out of her, leaving Sam to collapse to her knees, ducking and rolling away from where he'd tackled the hag into another wall. The fighting mostly covered the thudding of another pair of boots, and Sam shifted her eyes up just in time to see Tucker come running, thermos blazing.

"Danny! Down!" he cried, pressing the button on the side just as Danny shot up into the air and out of the beam's way.

The hag shrieked as she was sucked in, the vortex too much for her to escape. Sam only winced at the shrill sound, fingers brushing along her scalp feeling for the places she was now missing hair. Her fingers came back dotted with blood, the skin smarting where she'd just touched. The air dropped as Danny landed next to her, gloved hands reaching out to try and subject her to the same examination.

Sam shrugged him off, her lips twisting down into an angry frown at her best friend's sudden and unauthorized overshadowing of her own body.

"Dammit, Danny," Sam snarled as she shuddered. "Warn me the next time you decide to take my body for a spin. Now I have all of your ghost cooties inside of me."

"I bet that's not all of Danny you'd like inside of you," Tucker chortled a little more loudly than he'd intended. Danny flushed red, glancing at Sam, who looked like she was about to explode. Tucker's hands shot up in defense. "Well, it's true!"

One step was all he managed before his best friends shot after him in hot pursuit.


	91. Look at Me

Look At Me

He was sitting on her bed staring at the wall when she breezed into her room. School had been annoying, as usual. There was something about being trapped there all day that just sucked the joy out of life and destroyed any interest in learning. Of course, Sam thought sourly, you had to actually _go_ to have the joy sucked out.

She dropped her backpack at the foot of her bed and sent a narrow eyed glance at Danny before moving to her dresser. "You skipped again," she tossed his way as she watched him through the mirror, fingers working at one earring, and then depositing it in her jewelry box.

He didn't look at her, didn't even move, just continued staring at the wall. "It's not like I need to go."

Sam scoffed, second earring in hand before she dropped it with the other. "Of course you need to go! This is your future, Danny. It kind of depends on you actually going to school, not skipping weeks at a time."

There was a noncommittal snort from Danny in response.

She turned and glared at him again, this time with a frown. "Honestly, Danny. It's like you don't even care."

"My future is already here," he murmured, finally turning to look at her.

"Yeah," she shot back. "It's you going to school so you can graduate, go to college, get married, have kids—"

"Sam," he interrupted.

"What?"

"Sam, you have to stop this." Danny's voice was soft, steady. Certain.

She didn't want to think about it, about the ice curling up her spine as he spoke. It was almost as if paying attention to it would make—

No. _No,_ she told herself. Then aloud, "I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to sit here and watch you throw your life away." Because he was her best friend, and she loved him enough to keep him from doing just that.

Ice settled into her stomach, now, as Danny looked at her. His face twisted and his eyes dropped.

"It's a little late for that."

"Stop talking like that!" she shrieked, her fear rising, desperation creeping into her voice. "Just STOP."

He stood, took a step forward. Sam's hands itched to reach for him, but she could only wrap suddenly frozen fingers around herself. "Danny, don't," she pleaded softly. She didn't even realize she'd said it.

He stepped forward again, one hand reaching for her, fingers burning against her jawline. "Sam, look at me."

"No!" she cried, jerking back and spinning until her back was to him and she was staring at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were wide, her face was pale. She was alone. For a moment Sam thought she might be sick.

Her fingers dug into her arms with bruising force as Danny spoke again.

"Sam. _Look at me._ LOOK AT ME."

This time when she turned Sam wasn't greeted by the boy she'd known for years. Instead she was greeted by something else. There was blood matted in his hair, red streaked down the side of his face. One arm was twisted, dotted with crimson and pieces of gravel. There were larger streaks of red across his chest, shining as it seeped further down.

Sam stumbled back into her dresser, the wood biting into her back as she nearly collapsed. _No._ this wasn't real. "Danny," she gasped as looked at him.

His eyes were as blue as ever, pleading with her as he whispered, "Please, just let me go."

Her breath hitched, stinging in the back of her throat as it held back the sudden weight of tears. She breathed out shakily. "Okay."

xXx

**Let it be known that this collection was formerly known as 'Chaos Theories' and was renamed because I plan on using the theme for a few other fandoms. Also, there's a poll up on my profile concerning methods of posting chaptered fic. Please weigh in.**


	92. Death By 4

Death By

4

"I'm sorry, I don't speak your language," Danny Phantom said to the ghost currently babbling at him with a desperate light in its eyes.

He felt bad at times like these, when a ghost came to him looking for a way to be laid to rest and he couldn't help it because he couldn't understand it. It was so much that he'd been seriously considering hiring one of the local street urchins as a translator on occasion, though he expected he'd wind up with a small flock of them.

There were so many different dialects spoken throughout Africa, and a great many of them in the lower half. There was no way he could do more than what he already was doing and still support himself.

It wasn't like he hadn't dedicated his rare free time to learning the languages of his new home. Granted, Afrikaans was almost self-defense. Sure, English was one of the 'native' languages, but he got a lot further once he started learning the other language. His current focus was on Zulu, but he wasn't getting very far with it.

The ghost gestured widely before latching on to his arm. Danny sighed, settling back in the air as he realized he wasn't getting away quickly. _"__Praat jy __Afrikaans__?"_ he asked hopefully.

The blank stare was less than helpful. He sighed again and scrubbed a hand over his face before brushing his hair out of his eyes. He probably needed to get it cut, he thought absently as he perused what he knew of Zulu.

"_Ukhuluma isiZulu na?"_

Danny had little hope that this route would go well, if only because his own grasp of the language was sparse. But apparently his sparse grasp would have to do, because the ghost's face lit up and his rapid chatter changed from his own dialect to the almost familiar rolling tones interrupted by the sharp tongue noises characteristic of the languages.

All Danny caught was, _"Yebo, yebo,"_ before the ghost was off and running again leaving Danny certain that he was wasting his time with his studies.

He held his hands up. "Stop! _Ma!_" As soon as the ghost stopped Danny nodded. "Ngicela ukhulume kancane, angizwa." He did his best not to sound like he was begging, but if the ghost didn't slow down Danny would never be able to figure out what was wrong and how to help him.

It took a bit of time, a great deal of effort, and a pounding headache, but slowly the picture began coming together. The ghost, the man, was suffering from a curse set on him by a witch doctor and had traveled from the other coast hoping that the—well, Danny couldn't figure that one out since it was in the ghost's native tongue—could lift it so that he could finish dying.

Trouble was, Danny had no idea how to do that.

Danny also had no desire to get on the wrong side of any of the native shamans, either. He'd seen too much to think that he was immune to whatever they could do.

But he couldn't just do nothing.

Danny sighed, held his head in his hands, and murmured, "Don't worry. _Musa ukwenqena,Ngingakusiza na."_ The promise of help made the other ghost smile. He took comfort in it, because this was his life now.

xXx

"Dalv is moving to declare him dead," Tucker announced as he swept into Sam's room.

Sam glared at him for a moment through her mirror, one eye watering from where she'd stabbed herself in it with her eyeliner. Then she stood, tugging at the hem of her blouse without realizing it. "It's only been three years," she commented as her brain caught up with her. it was the only outward acknowledgment either of them would give the day.

Tucker passed her the newspaper before collecting the ectogun on the end of her bed and shouldering it. "Dalv has its fingers in enough pies that there's a good chance they'll actually push it through."

Sam worried her lip for a moment before hmming through her teeth. "I kind of expected the board holders to move before now," she admitted. "But it's not like we didn't see it coming."

Tucker smirked a little. "Well, they have an uphill battle."

Sam laughed loudly at this and shook her head. "I don't even want to know what they'll do when they find out what's in Vlad's will." She slipped her feet into the heels next to her dresser before grabbing the jacket the matched her blue skirt from where it was draped on her desk chair. "I have to head out if I don't want to be late, Tuck. Lock up for me?"

Tucker nodded as he followed her briskly tapping heels. "Is today hostile takeover time?"

Sam nodded as she grabbed an apple and a slim faux leather portfolio on her way to her front door. "My parents are going to have kittens."

"Better them than us," he called after her.

Sam chuckled as she closed her door behind her and headed for the black Town Car waiting for her. She slid in carefully and ignored her driver as he closed the door and made his way around to the driver's seat. She had bigger fish to fry for the time being, with two of the biggest being her parents. They were aware that her grandmother had left her controlling interest in the family's companies, but she didn't think they realized that Sam now had the ability to take control, which was something entirely different than sitting back and living off of other people's hard work.

It certainly didn't hurt that she was about to announce to her own board that she was taking four of the companies she possessed and stripping them to parts. It was skirting dangerously close to insider trading, but Sam had already spoken with legal. As long as she dissolved the companies she was fine.

She smirked a little though, just as Tucker had. Before the year ended Vlad would be declared dead, and his will would be activated, and Dalv would be dead in the water. It would probably take them another year to appoint a board of trustees to run the conglomerate, but that was no skin on off her back.

She sighed. That gave them four more years to find Danny.

She opened the portfolio that rested on her lap and skimmed slim fingers down the page on top, over the signature scrawled at the bottom. She'd never pictured anything like this happening when she convinced Danny and Tucker to have wills made. It was just a precaution.

Her breathing hitched for a moment and Sam bowed her head. She'd give everything, Dalv, her own family companies, _everything_, to have Danny back again.

xXx

Eight-thousand-four-hundred-ninety-six miles away, Danny Fenton let himself into his one bedroom flat. He was tired, filthy, and really just wanted to fall into his bed and _sleep_.

Instead, he locked the door behind him, headed for the bathroom, and showered and shaved. He dressed again in clean pants and a white shirt, combed his hair, and tried not to pay attention to the circles under his eyes or the bruises creeping up just above the collar of his shirt. He remained silent as he pocketed his keys and left the small flat once more, this time headed for St. Mary's.

When he got there, he slipped into one of the back pews, quiet still, hands steady as he took up a prayer book. The evening prayer had only just begun, and despite the many voices around him, the choir at the front singing the evensong, Danny still remained silent.

When it was done and the cathedral had emptied out he moved quietly to the side of the church, eyes taking in the gentle yellow flicker of votive candles. Without conscious thought his hand slipped into his pocket and withdrew a few coins. Dropping them into the offering box he took up one of the long matches and struck it.

The bright flame moved unerringly to an unlit candle near the center of the wall. The wick caught after a moment, flaring to a life all its own, and Danny bowed his head.

"Jazz," he murmured. "Forgive me."

**xXx**

**I'm working, I'm working, I swear!**


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